Reginald Pole

Reginald Pole (March 1500, Staffordshire - November 17th 1558), was archbishop of Canterbury, cardinal of the Roman Catholic church.

He was the son of Sir Richard Pole and Margaret Pole, countess of Salisbury. His/her maternal grandparent were George, 1st Duc of Clarence and Isabelle Neville. He was the last catholic archbishop of Canterbury.

Life

Formation

Intern of Magdalen College with the Oxford of 1512 with 1519, it followed the teaching of William Latimer and Thomas Linacre and was made graduate the June 27th 1515. In February 1518 Henry VIII appointed it senior of the cathedral of Wimborne, in the Dorset.

In 1521, Pole went to Padoue, where it met personalities of the Italian Renaissance like Pietro Bembo, Gianmatteo Giberti (in the past member of the Roman Curie of Leon X), Jacopo Sadoleto, Gianpietro Carafa (the future pope Paul IV), Rodolfo Pio, Otto Truchsess, Stanislaus Hosius, Cristoforo Madruzzo, Giovanni Morone, Pier Paolo Vergerio the young person, Pietro Martire Vermigli (Pierre Martyr), and Vettor Soranzo, these last three having been condemned besides for Hérésie.

Its election with the college of Corpus Christi College of Oxford, the February 14th 1523, provides him the money necessary to continue studies abroad still a few years.

Difficulties with Henry VIII

Pole turned over to England in July 1526, crossing France in company of Thomas Lupset. Henry VIII offered to him the archbishop's palace of York or the diocese of Winchester for little which he granted his divorce of with Catherine d' Aragon. Pole refused and preferred to be exiled in France and Italy in 1532, where it continued its studies in the universities of Padoue and Paris.

The dfinitive rupture occurred when Thomas Cromwell, Cuthbert Tunstall, Thomas Starkey and other personalities wrote in the name of the king series of questions which they subjected to Pole. For any answer, this one addressed to the monarch a copy of his treaty Pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione (For the defense of a unified church) which contained, in addition to the answer to the questions, an indictment in rule against the royal policy.

Furious, Henri was avenged by persecuting the members for his family. In November 1538, two of his/her brothers of which the elder Henri, Baron Montagu, and several their parents were stopped and shown treason, imprisoned in the Tour of London and carried out (except Geoffrey Pole) in January 1539. The mother of Reginald Pole, Margaret, was also stopped and spent several years under very hard detention conditions to the tower of London to finish carried out in 1541 in spite of her protests of innocence. This episode was always regarded as a serious miscarriage of justice, even at its time. Margaret Pole was béatifiée in 1886 by the pope Leon XIII.

It is possible that the animosity of Henri towards the family of Pole had another reason. Margaret was the downward last of the dynasty of the Plantagenêt, which made its wire of the potential applicants to the throne of England. In 1535, Eustace Chapuys, Ambassador of the Holy Empire near the English crown, regarded Pole as a possible party for the princess Marie Tudor, who was going to become Marie Ire of England.

Cardinal and legate

In 1536, Paul III named it cardinal, with its defending body. In 1542 it was one of the three legates elected to chair the Concile of Thirty and with died of Paul III in 1549 Pole missed the election in the Holy See with one voice.

Return in England

The death of Edouard VI the July 6th 1553 and the access to the capacity of Marie Tudor reflect a term with the exile of Pole which been able to return to England initially as legate pontifical But Marie Tudor and the emperor Charles Quint made it have patience until the November 20th 1554, by fear that the arrival of a papal legate in England did not contribute to exacerbate the popular opposition to the marriage of Marie with the son of Charles, Philippe II.

To advise of Marie Tudor

Under the reign of Marie Anger, Pole was finally ordered priest the March 20th 1557 and was named archbishop of Canterbury, function which it was going to preserve until his death. In addition to its sacerdotal responsibilities, Pole was the Prime Minister de facto of Marie and its consiller more listened. For this reason it deserves its share of responsibility in persecutions and the mass executions for Protestants on roughing-hew it who were worth with the queen the nickname of Marie bloody the and contributed to nourish the hatred of many generations of Protestants towards the Catholic church, which Pole had not wanted.

He died in Londre on November 17th 1558, a few hours only after the queen. Its skin rests close to the northern enclosure of the Couronne of the Cathédrale of Canterbury.

Works

He is the author of a De Concilio as well as several treaties on the authority of the Roman pontiff, on the Réforme Anglican and of a corpus of letters extremely interesting for the history of the time. Pole is known for its judgment without call of the book of Nicolas Machiavel, the Prince on the subject of which he wrote: I find that this kind of work is the work of enemies of mankind. He explains by the menu how the religion, justice and all leaning with the virtue can be destroyed .

The legend

The character of Pole appears in several works of fiction, in particular in the historical novel The Trusted Being used (the right-hand man) as Alison Macleod.

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