Henry VIII is known for being brutal and barbaric in the fact he ordered the executions of many
of his closest friends and even two of his own wives.
Inside of the Tower of London Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard had their head taken
clean off by an executioner.
Henry made many enemies inside of England, and rebellions rose up inside of his kingdom
especially with regards to the changes in religion he made.
The Pilgrimage of Grace rose up in the north in opposition to the King’s Dissolutions
of the Monasteries, which saw thousands of nuns and monks made homeless and their ways
of life were left in tatters.
But there was one man who never incurred the wrath of the Tudor King, but many believed
he was the King’s most dangerous and greatest enemy.
Cardinal Reginald Pole was a man who could have been executed by Henry VIII, but he managed
to escape the King’s wrath.
Reginald Pole was born at Stourton Castle in Staffordshire on the 12th March 1500.
He was the third son of Sir Richard Pole and Margaret the Countess of Salisbury.
He technically had royal blood, as his mother was a member of the Plantagenet dynasty who
ruled before the Tudors took the throne, and with this he could have been considered a
threat to Henry VIII’s crown.
He was the great nephew of Edward IV and also Richard III, and he was educated at Sheen
Priory.
He then went to Oxford University and was taught by leading teachers.
In February 1518, Henry VIII gave him the deanery of Wimborne Minster in Dorset, and
he then became later the Dean of Exeter.
He was also a canon in York and was a high up member of the Catholic despite not being
ordained as a priest at the time.
He studied abroad at the University of Padua and rubbed shoulders with key Renaissance
men, and a number of these who he was friends with were regarded as heretics by the Catholic
Church.
However when he came back to England in July 1526, Henry VIII offered him to become the
Archbishop of York, or the diocese of Winchester, two high up and prominent positions in the
Church of England.
He would only be offered these if he supported the annulment of the King’s marriage to
Catherine of Aragon.
But he could not support the King on this matter.
He then in 1529 represented King Henry VIII at the French royal court, and he also researched
the legality of Henry VIII divorcing or annulling his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
Here he consulted other leading theologians on this, and he reached the conclusion privately
that this was not legal.
But he then turned down the two positions he had been offered earlier and he then went
into self-imposed exile in France and in Italy, and continued studying at prominent universities.
He returned around 1532 and became the Vicar of Middletown a small settlement in Dorset
for a few years.
However in May 1536, Reginald Pole finally broke from the King and his ideas.
He had previously warned against marrying Anne Boleyn.
He could not support the King in this, as it conflicted greatly with his religious beliefs
and Catholic ideas.
The imperial ambassador to England at the time suggested to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles
V, that Reginald Pole should marry the daughter of Henry, Mary I to combine the claims to
the throne that he actually had.
But at the time, Henry was growing tired of Reginald Pole.
Reginald Pole sent the King a treaty and document which outlined the King’s policies and how
the Church and Pole were against them.
He denied Henry’s supremacy over the church, and the Reginald Pole went further asking
the princes and royal families across Europe to invade and depose Henry VIII off the English
throne.
Henry then wrote to Pole’s mother the Countess of Salisbury, and warned Reginald of his actions.
But on the 22nd December 1536, Reginald Pole was then made a cardinal by the Vatican.
He was the papal legate to England in February 1536, and the Pope then put him in charge
of organising help for the pilgrimage of grace.
This was a rebellion in the north against Henry’s religious policies, and the English
government then tried to have Reginald Pole assassinated and killed.
Pole was then in 1539 sent to the Emperor to organise a trade embargo against England
to try and hurt the English economy.
However Reginald Pole was out of reach for the English King to execute him, and for this
Henry VIII took his anger out on Reginald’s family.
He accused them of being involved in treason, and Sir Geoffrey Pole was executed, as were
many other members of the Pole family.
They were accused of being in correspondence with Reginald, but even his mother Margaret
Pole was held inside the Tower of London.
She was held inside the infamous prison for two and a half years under very harsh conditions,
however she was finally executed in 1541 and she suffered greatly.
She was hacked to pieces on the cobbled floor of the Tower of London by a blundering axeman
who took many swings to take her head off.
The King was very harsh towards the Pole family not just for Reginald’s defiance but for
the fact the Pole family were one of the last surviving members of the House of Plantagenet,
and with the executions he stamped out the threat to the throne that Margaret Pole and
her children posed.
But further promotions in the church came for Reginald Pole and it’s clear that he
was very well thought of.
At one point he was considered one of the leading people to become the Pope following
the death of the previous ones.
However his fortunes changed with regards to England following the death of King Henry
VIII and also following the death of his son and heir Edward VI on the 6th July 1553.
Following Lady Jane Grey being deposed by the Catholic Mary I, Reginald Pole returned
from exile and then came back to England in 1554.
He was delayed until the 20th November 1554 as the Queen worried be may oppose her marriage
to Phillip of Spain, the son of the Roman Emperor.
Back in England he negotiated the return of much of the monastic land confiscated during
the Dissolutions of the monasteries, and Parliament also revived the heresy acts.
Pole’s act of attainder was reversed and he was finally ordained as a Catholic priest
on the 20th March 1556, and he then became Archbishop of Canterbury.
He held this job until he died, and was also the Chancellor of Oxford and Cambridge universities.
In terms of his relationship with Mary I, he acted as her key religious advisor.
As he was the Archbishop of Canterbury, he can be considered partially responsible for
the Marian persecutions and the sheer amount of burnings of Protestants that occurred during
her reign.
Many people were burned at the stake in blood scenes, but it’s not known how active Reginald
Pole was in the heresy trials.
Many people throughout Mary’s reign did turn on her, and Pole distanced himself from
her.
However on the 17th November 1558, Reginald Pole died at 7pm around 12 hours after Mary
I’d death after he had contracted flu.
Today Reginald Pole is considered one of the greatest enemies of King Henry VIII.
He was one man who really got under the skin of the King, but unlike many of his catholic
friends he never made his way to the execution block.
Many people such as John Fisher and Sir Thomas More who were much closer to the King were
beheaded for their lack of support with regards to the King’s policies on religion.
It’s certain that if Cardinal Pole had been inside of England during Henry’s reign that
Henry would have ordered his arrest and seizure and he would have been executed, possibly
by being burned alive, beheaded or hanged, drawn and quartered.
He was the man who managed to escape the brutal Tudor king.
Thanks for watching
To support our channel; please make sure to subscribe.