The story of Lady Margaret.
[Drumroll]
At the Tower of London,
kept in a safe place,
is a long list of names,
the names of all those
who've been held prisoner inside its walls.
Some of them are famous.
Some of them forgotten.
Men and women, girls and boys, rich and poor,
and a few even royal.
This is a story of one of those royals
and possibly the oldest female prisoner
in the Tower's history.
Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury.
Margaret was born in 1473,
into the brutal and bloody time known as the War of the Roses.
Powerful families were fighting for the crown of England
and she was right in the middle of it
as her father was third in line to the throne.
Many members of her family were killed in battle
including her uncle, King Richard III.
and her young cousins, the Princes in the Tower,
just disappeared,
presumably murdered.
The War of the Roses came to an end
when Henry Tudor became Henry VII,
however some people thought Margaret and her brother
had a stronger claim to the throne than him.
So he had to deal with this threat.
Margaret's brother was executed.
And at just 14 years old, Margaret was married to Sir Richard Pole
who was loyal to the new King.
In 1509, Margaret's fortunes changed for the better.
Both her husband and Henry VII had died,
and the new King Henry VIII,
gave Margaret her brother's old title.
He also gave her a job in Princess Mary's household.
Margaret was now the Countess of Salisbury,
the respected head of a strong family,
and she was also great friends with Henry's Queen,
Katherine of Aragon
With land and power,
she became one of the top five wealthiest peers of her time.
But this good fortune was not to last.
Margaret decided to stay loyal to the Queen after the King divorced her,
and Henry did not look kindly on this.
Things got worse when in 1533
King Henry married Anne Boleyn
and Princess Mary's household was dissolved.
All those who served her were sent home,
but Maragret remaining loyal,
refused to leave and offered to use her own money to serve Mary.
The King became even more furious
when he demanded Mary's jewels back
to give to his new daughter Elizabeth
and the countess refused on Mary's behalf.
Margaret's position was made even worse by her son Reginald.
He was a favourite of the King
who offered him an important role in the Church of England.
However Reginald refused,
declaring that he remained loyal to the Pope.
and that he did not agree with Henry's changes to the Church.
The King was so angry that he drew his dagger
and terrified Reginald ran from the room in tears.
Knowing that he could never agree with the King,
Reginald left England
and didn't return until after the King's death.
Reginald wasn't alone in disagreeing with the King's changes to the Church
and some, in particular in the north of the country,
took up weapons and were prepared to fight.
The King sent his soldiers north
and they defeated the rebels.
But the incident unsettled him and he became paranoid.
In an attempt to keep his throne safe
he put a lot of his cousins and distant relatives
in the Tower of London.
At first it seemed that the Countess had escaped these arrests.
But Reginald had been made a Cardinal by the Pope,
and he began to get a foreign army together.
He intended to invade England and storm London
in the name of the Catholic Church.
The Countess owned lots of property along the South Coast.
and this would have been a perfect place for her son's army to land.
The king was sure she was involved in this treason,
and Margaret was arrested.
She was sent to the Tower of London with the rest of her family.
She was questioned many times by the King's counsellors.
But if she was frightened, she did not show it.
At the time her interrogators were shocked
that a woman in her position could be so calm,
so earnest, and so noble.
They reported back that it was as if they were questioning a confident man.
For two and a half years she was kept prisoner,
but suddenly in May 1541 at the age of 67,
she was told she was to be executed.
The morning of her execution
she was woken very early
and led out of her rooms too a small block.
She fell to her knees and prayed,
asked to be remembered to Princess Mary,
and laid her neck on the block.
It seems that the official executioner was not available that day,
as Margaret suffered horribly
at the hands of a young, unpracticed executioner
who hacked at her neck and shoulders
many times before she died.
Margaret Pole is one of just five women to be executed
inside the walls the Tower of London during the Tudor times,
and she is buried within those very same walls
in the Chapel of St Peter Ad Vincula
The Roman Catholic Church claimed that Margaret was a martyr
and over 300 year later, she was made a saint.