Margaret PLANTAGENET

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Countess of Salisbury

Notes:

Excerpt from Blood Royal: Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, was the devoted governess of the young Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII, King of England, and was considered by the Princess as a second mother. Margaret was mother of Reginald Pole, Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury, who refused to support Henry VIII in his break with Rome. Henry VIII has her imprisoned in the Tower where she would remain about two years, suffering "by the severity of the weather and the insufficiency of her clothing." Early on the morning of 27 May 1541, she was beheaded, despite the fact she was nearing the age of seventy. "The executioner was a clumsy novice, who hideously hacked her neck and shoulders before the decapitation was accomplished." When Pole heard of his mother's execution ("without trial or formal charge"), he is reported to have said, "I am now the son of a martyr." It is believed that Henry VIII, despite the fact that he had once called her the most saintly woman in England, was executing Margaret because he could not get at the son.

There are varying accounts of her execution. Some sources describe the Countess as refusing to place her head on the block. Stating that she had done nothing traitorous, she fled from the executioner, who chased her around the courtyard, hacking her with the axe.

From "The Worthies of England, 1952, pg 612": On the scaffold, as she stood, she would not gratify the executioner with a prostrate posture of her body." Since the countess refused to put her head on the block, "Here happened an unequal contest betwixt weakness and strength, age and youth, nakedness and weapons, nobility and baseness, a princess and an executioner, who at last dragging her by the hair, grey with age, may truly be said to have took off her head, seeing she would neither give it to him, nor forgive him the doing thereof>' However, the "Dictionary of National Biography" reports that the Countess died with dignity, requesting prayers for those near to her and for the king and queen and his children. She then submitted to the clumsy executioner, an "inexperienced youth," "who hacked her neck and shoulders before the decapitation was accomplished."

Name:
On the death of her brother Richard Plantagenent , Earl of Warwick, on 28 Nov 1499, she became sole heiress, not only to her father, but to the Earls of Warwick and Earls of Salisbury. She was Lady of the Chamber to Queen Katherine of Aragon in 1509. Sir Richard de le Pole died before 18 Dec 1505. In 1538 King Henry VIII struck at the family of Pole, on account both of their descent from King Edward IV's brother George, Duke of Clarence, and of the action of Cardinal Reginald Pole, who hoped that Paul III would publish a Bull of deprivation. Their youngest son, Sir Geoffrey Pole, was sent to the Tower on 29 Aug 1538, followed on 4 November, by their first son Henry, Lord Montagu. Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury, was sent to the Tower of London, attainted, and beheaded at the Tower on 28 May 1541. She was the last surviving member of the royal House of Anjou (usually known as the Plantagenets).

Margaret married Sir Richard DE LA POLE, K.G. in Nov 1487. Richard (son of Geoffrey DE LA POLE and Edith ST. JOHN) died before 15 Nov 1505. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: Ursula and Henry had 13 children.

Ursula married Henry STAFFORD between 16 Feb 1518 and 1519. Henry (son of Edward STAFFORD and Eleanor PERCY) was born on 18 Sep 1501; died on 30 Apr 1563. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Lord Montagu

Notes:

Name:
He was employed in the household of King Henry VIII as early as Nov. 1509, and appears to have been known as Lord Montagu from 1514. In 1538 he (as grandson of George, Duke of Clarence) and Henry Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter (as grandson of King Edward IV), became the victims of the King's fears that one of them might be chosen in his place if he were dethroned. Henry Pole, Lord Montagu, was beheaded on Tower Hill on 9 Jan. 1538/9.

Henry married Jane NEVILLE before May 1520. Jane (daughter of George NEVILLE and Margaret FENNE) was born in 1492; died before 26 Oct 1538. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]