Editing Reginald Pole (section)

== Cardinal Pole ==
[[File:Perin del Vaga - Papa Paolo III con consigliere - Basilica Francesca Romana.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Pole with [[Pope Paul III|Paul III]] in a 1539 portrait by [[Perino del Vaga]]]]
On 22 December 1536, Pole, already a deacon, was created a [[Cardinal (Catholicism)|cardinal]]<ref name=Thurston>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12201b.htm Thurston, Herbert. "Reginald Pole." The Catholic Encyclopedia] Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 20 March 2018</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399301/obo-9780195399301-0211.xml|title=Cardinal Reginald Pole|website=obo}}</ref> over Pole's own objections.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mayer |first=Thomas F. |date=July 1987 |title=A Diet for Henry VIII: The Failure of Reginald Pole's 1537 Legation |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-british-studies/article/abs/diet-for-henry-viii-the-failure-of-reginald-poles-1537-legation/4BF1F884954141F69EFCC78FD848B715 |journal=Journal of British Studies |language=en |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=305–331 |doi=10.1086/385892 |s2cid=145195155 |issn=0021-9371}}</ref>  He was the fourth of the five English cardinals of the first half of the sixteenth century.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Murphy |first=John |date=2017-12-16 |title=Cardinal Reginald Pole: Questions of Self-Justification and of Faith |journal=Royal Studies Journal |language=en-US |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=177 |doi=10.21039/rsj.v4i2.173|s2cid=158550919 |doi-access=free }}</ref>{{NoteTag|The other four Cardinals were [[Christopher Bainbridge]], [[Thomas Wolsey]], [[John Fisher]], and [[William Petow]].}} He also became [[papal legate]] to England in February 1536/1537.  [[Pope Paul III]] put him in charge of organising assistance for the [[Pilgrimage of Grace]] (and related movements), an effort to organise a march on London to demand Henry replace his ‘reformist’ advisers with more traditional, Catholic minds; neither [[Francis I of France]] nor the Emperor supported this effort, and the English government tried to have Pole assassinated. In 1539, Pole was sent to the Emperor to organise an embargo against England&nbsp;– the sort of countermeasure he had himself warned Henry was possible.<ref name="odnb"/>

The King, with Pole himself out of his reach, took revenge on Pole's family for engaging in treason by word against the King. This later became known as the [[Exeter Conspiracy]]. The leading members were arrested, and all their properties seized. This destroyed the Pole family.<ref>Ronald Fritze, ed., ''''Historical Dictionary of Tudor England, 1485-1603'' (1991) pp. 191-92.</ref>  Sir [[Geoffrey Pole]] was arrested in August 1538; he had been corresponding with Reginald. The investigation of [[Henry Courtenay, 1st Marquess of Exeter]] (Henry VIII's first cousin and the Countess of Salisbury's first cousin once removed) had turned up his name. Sir Geoffrey appealed to Thomas Cromwell, who had him arrested and interrogated. Under interrogation, Sir Geoffrey admitted that [[Henry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu]], and Exeter had both been parties to his correspondence with Reginald. Montagu, Exeter, and Lady Salisbury were arrested in November 1538, together with Henry Pole and other family members, on charges of [[treason]]. This was despite Cromwell having previously written that they had "little offended save that he [Reginald Pole] is of their kin". They were committed to the [[Tower of London]] and, apart from Geoffrey Pole, they were all eventually executed.

In January 1539, Sir Geoffrey was pardoned. Montagu and Exeter were tried and executed for treason. Reginald Pole was [[attainted]] [[trial in absentia|''in absentia'']]. In May 1539, Montagu, Exeter, Lady Salisbury, and others were also attainted, as her father had been; this meant that they lost their lands – mostly in the South of England, conveniently located (alleged the crown) to assist any invasion  – and titles. Those still alive in the Tower were also sentenced to death, and so could be executed at the King's will. As part of the evidence given in support of the Bill of Attainder, Cromwell produced a tunic bearing the [[Five Holy Wounds|Five Wounds of Christ]], purported to show Lady Salisbury's support of traditional Catholicism. This, supposedly, came to light six months after her house and effects had already been searched when she was arrested. It is likely to have been planted there.

Margaret Pole was held in the Tower of London for two and a half years under severe conditions; she, her grandson (Montagu's son), and Exeter's son were held together on orders of the King. In 1540, Cromwell himself fell from favour and was himself attainted and executed. Margaret was finally executed in 1541, protesting her innocence until the last – a highly publicised case considered a grave miscarriage of justice both at the time and later. Her execution was gruesome, botched by an inexperienced executioner, who delivered nearly a dozen blows before she was finally killed. Pole is known to have said that he would "never fear to call himself the son of a martyr". Some 350 years later, in 1886, Margaret was [[beatified]] by [[Pope Leo XIII]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://saintsresource.com/margaret-pole|title=Margaret Pole {{!}} Saints Resource|website=saintsresource.com|access-date=2018-12-30}}</ref> Aside from the hostile treatise ''Pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione'', another contribution fuelling King Henry's brutality towards the Pole family might have been that Pole's mother, Margaret, was one of the last surviving members of the [[House of Plantagenet]]. Under some circumstances, that line of descent could have made Reginald – until he definitely entered the clergy – a possible contender for the throne itself.

In 1542 Reginald Pole was appointed as one of the three papal legates to preside over the [[Council of Trent]]. In the [[1549–1550 papal conclave]] which followed the death of Pope Paul III in 1549, Pole, at one point, had 26 out of the 28 votes he needed to become pope himself.<ref name="odnb"/> His personal belief in [[justification by faith alone]] over works had caused him problems at [[Trento|Trent]] and accusations of heretical crypto-[[Lutheranism]] at the conclave. [[Thomas Hoby]], visiting Rome so as to be present in the city during the conclave, recorded that Pole failed to be elected "by the [[Ippolito_II_d%27Este|Cardinall of Ferrara]] his meanes the voice of manie cardinalls of the French partie, persuading them that Cardinall Pole was both Imperiall and also a verie Lutheran".<ref>[[Edward Chaney]], ''The Evolution of the Grand Tour: Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations since the Renaissance'' (London, 2nd ed. 2000), pp. 64, 92 and 109</ref>