Pole, Reginald
Pole, Reginald
Cardinal. Born in 1500 at Stourton Castle, Staffordshire, England; died at Lambeth Palace in 1558. Son of Sir Richard Pole and Margaret, niece of Kng Edward IV, he was always recognized as kinsman by King Henry VIII. Educated at Charter house and Oxford, he became dean of Wimborne collegiate church, 1518, although he had not yet taken orders. With Henry’s assistance he went to Padua in 1521 where he was a favorite among scholars, knowing Erasmus and More. Returning to England in 1527, he was elected Dean of Exeter, but to avoid embarrassment after Henry’s divorce, he went to Paris, only to be recalled by Henry who, crediting him with the Paris university’s approbation of his divorce, offered him, on Wolsey’s death, important sees. Pole, however, expressed himself unequivocally on the divorce and, Henry allowed him to return to Padua. His uncompromising reply when Henry pressed him for a written defense of the king’s conduct in 1534, and his courteous disobedience of the summons to England to explain were almost simultaneous with the summons to Rome, where, despite his protestations, Paul III made him, still without orders, a cardinal in1536. In England his brothers were arrested and his mother martyred. He was one of three legates at the opening of the Council of Trent in 1542. When Pope Paul III died he might have become pope “by adoration,” but willingly allowed it to pass. The death of King Edward VI in 1553 restored him to active life in England, where, on his arrival as legate, he absolved both Houses of Parliament from schism. He was ordained in 1557, and two days later consecrated archbishop. His royal descent and friendship with the queen made him a considerable power in state affairs, but he was singularly disinterested in material promotion, and had nothing to do with the persecutions of Mary’s reign. He died a few hours after Queen Mary. Pole’s moral life and purpose were above question; his piety, learning, and asceticism the admiration of all.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Pole, Reginald
Cardinal, b. at Stourton Castle, Staffordshire, England, in March, 1500; d. at Lambeth Palace, 17 Nov., 1558; third son of Sir Richard Pole, Knight of the Garter, and Margaret, daughter of George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV. From the beginning of his reign Henry VIII recognized him as a near kinsman and showed him special favour, while in 1513 he created his widowed mother Countess of Salisbury, an act of tardy reparation for the attainder and execution under Henry VII of her only brother Edward, Earl of Warwick. She was also made governess to the Princess Mary in 1516 and we may assume that Pole’s intimacy with the royal mistress whom he was afterwards to serve so devotedly began before he left England. The boy received his early education in the Charterhouse at Sheen, where he spent five years. He went to Oxford at the age of twelve or thirteen, and took his degree soon after he was fifteen. He was, it seems, intended for the Church, a choice to which he willingly assented, and though he had received no orders and was still hardly more than a lad, benefices were showered upon him, amongst others, a prebend bearing with it the title of dean in the collegiate church of Wimborne (15 Feb., 1518).
Throughout all his career Pole’s attraction for a studious life was most pronounced. At his own wish and with the approval and pecuniary help of Henry VIII he set out in Feb., 1521 for Padua, at that time a great centre of learning, and in the coterie of scholars which he found there the young kinsman of the King of England became a great favourite. Men like Longolius (de Longueil), who, dying shortly afterwards, left Pole his library, Leonicus, who taught him Greek, Bembo the humanist, and later Cardinal Contarini, also one day destined to adorn the Sacred College, and the English scholar Lupset, all sought his intimacy, while at a later period and under other circumstances he acquired the friendship and won the high esteem of Erasmus and More. All these were not only learned but large-minded men, and the mere fact of his choosing such associates would suffice to prove that Pole was not the bigot he has been sometimes represented. Pole remained in Italy until 1527. After a visit to Rome in 1526, and on his return he still pursued his studies, residing within the enclosure of the Carthusians at Sheen. Even at this date he had not yet received minor orders, but he was nevertheless elected Dean of Exeter (12 Aug., 1527).
Shortly after this the great matter of the king’s divorce came to a head, and Pole, to avoid having to take sides in a complication in which conscience, friendship, and gratitude to his royal kinsman were inextricably entangled, obtained permission to continue his studies in Paris. But he did not thus escape from his embarrassment, for his aid was asked by the king to obtain from the university an opinion favourable to the divorce. When the young student pleaded inexperience, Fox was sent to assist him. The situation wa a delicate one and Pole probably did little to forward a cause so distasteful to his own feeling (the effective pressure, as we know, was really applied by Francis I), but he had the credit of managing the business and was thanked for his exertions (see Calendar, IV, 6252, 6483, 6505). None the less, Henry required his kindman to return to England, and when shortly afterwards Wolsey’s disgrace was followed by his death, Pole was invited to succeed him as Archbishop of York, or to accept the See of Winchester. That this was merely a bribe to obtain Pole’s support was not so obvious then as it must seem to us now in the light of subsequent developments. He hesitated and asked for a month to make up his mind. Finally he obtained an interview with the king and seems to have expressed his feelings on the divorce question so boldly that Henry in his fury laid his hand upon his dagger. To explain his position he subsequently submitted a memorial on the subject which, even according to the unfriendly testimony of Cranmer, was a masterly document (Strype, “Cranmer”, Ap. 1), moderately and tactfully worded. “The king”, so Pole pleaded–it was in the early part of 1531–”standeth even upon the brink of the water and he may yet save all his honour, but if he put forth his foot but one step forward, all his honour is drowned.”
The course of subsequent history fully justified Pole’s prescience, and indeed for a moment the king seems to have wavered, but evil counsels urged him forward on the road to destruction. Still, as Pole had not made his opposition public, Henry was magnanimous enough at this stage to give him permission in January, 1532, to withdraw to the continent, while continuing as before to pay his allowances out of the royal exchequer. Resuming, eventually, his peaceful life in Padua, Pole renewed or established an intimacy with the leaders in the world of letters, men like Sadolet (then Bishop of Carpentras), Contarini, and Ludovico Priuli. The two or three years which followed were probably the happiest he was fated ever to know.
Meanwhile events were moving rapidly in England. The last strands which bound England to Rome had been severed by the king in 1534. The situation was desperate, but many seemed to think that it was in Pole’s power to render aid. On the side of Princess Mary and her cousin Charles V advances were made to him in June, 1535, and after some demur he agreed to make an attempt at mediation. On the other hand, Henry seemed still to cling to the idea of gaining him over to support the divorce, and through the intermediary of Pole’s chaplain, Starkey, who happened to be in England at the close of 1534, Pole had been pressed by the king to write his opinion on the lawfulness jure divino of marriage with a deceased brother’s widow, and also upon the Divine institution of the papal supremacy. Pole reluctantly consented, and his reply after long delay eventually took the form of a treatise, “Pro ecclesiasticæ Unitatis defensione”. It was most uncompromising in language and argument, and we cannot doubt that events in England, especially the tragedy of the execution of Fisher and More and of his friends the Carthusians, had convinced Pole that it was his duty before God to speak plainly, whatever the cost might be to himself and his family. The book, however, was not made public until a later date. It was at first sent off privately to the king (27 May, 1536), and Henry on glancing through it at once dispatched the messenger, who had brought it, back to Pole, demanding his attendance in England to explain certain difficulties in what he had written. Pole, however, while using courteous and respectful language to the king, and craving his mother’s pardon in another letter for the action he felt bound to take, decided to disobey the summons. At this juncture he was called to Rome by command of Paul III. To accept the papal invitation was clearly and before the eyes of all men to side with the pope against the king, his benefactor. For a while Pole, who was by turns coaxed and threatened in letters from his mother and relatives in England, seems to have been in doubt as to where his duty lay. But his advisers, men like Ghiberti, Bishop of Verona, and Caraffa, the founder of the Theatines, afterwards Paul IV, urged that God must be obeyed rather than man. So the papal invitation was accepted, and by the middle of November, 1536, Pole, though still without orders of any kind, found himself lodged in the Vatican.
The summons of Paul III had reference to the commission which he had convened under the presidency of Contarini to draw up a scheme for the internal reform of the Church. The pope wished Pole to take part in this commission, and shortly afterwards announced his intention of making him a cardinal. To this proposal Pole, influenced in part by the thought of the sinister construction likely to be put upon his conduct in England, made an energetic and, undoubtedly, sincere resistance, but his objections were overborne and, after receiving the tonsure, he was raised to the purple along with Sadolet, Caraffa, and nine others on 22 Dec., 1536. The commission must have finished its sittings by the middle of February (Pastor, “Geschichte der Päpste”, V, 118), and Pole was despatched upon a mission to the north on 18 Feb., with the title of legate, as it was hoped that the rising known as the “Pilgrimage of Grace” might have created a favourable opportunity for intervention in England. But the rivalry between Charles V and Francis I robbed Pole’s mission of any little prospect of success. He met in fact with rebuffs from both French and Spaniards, and eventually had to take refuge with the Cardinal bishop of Liège. After being recalled to Rome, he was present in the spring of 1538 at the meeting between Charles V and Francis I at Nice. Meanwhile Pole’s brothers had been arrested in England, and there was good reason to believe that his own life was in danger even in Venetian territory from Henry’s hired assassins (cf. Pastor, op. cit., V, 685). Pole then set himself with the pope’s approval to organize a European league against Henry. He met Charles at Toledo in Feb., 1539, but he was politely excluded from French territory, and after learning the sad news of his mother’s martyrdom, he was recalled to Rome, where he was appointed legate to govern from Viterbo the district known as the Patrimony of St. Peter. His rule was conspicuously mild, and when two Englishmen were arrested, who confessed that they had been sent to assassinate him, he remitted the death penalty and was content to send them for a very short term to the galleys.
In 1542 Pole was one of the three legates appointed to preside over the opening of the Council of Trent. Owing to unforeseen delays the Fathers did not actually assemble until Dec., 1545, and the English cardinal spent the interval in writing the treatise “De Concilio”. At the second session of the Council, 7 Jan., 1546, the impressive “Admonitio Legatorum ad Patres Concilii” (see Ehses, “Conc. Trid.”, IV, 548- 53) was drafted by Pole. For reasons of health he was compelled to leave Trent on 28 June, but there seems to be good evidence that his malady was real enough, and not feigned, as some have pretended, on account of the divergence of his views from those of the majority upon the question of justification (Pastor, op. cit., V, 578, note 3). None the less before the Diet of Ratisbon he undoubtedly had shared certain opinions of his friend Contarini in this matter which were afterwards reprobated by the Council (ibid., V, 335-37). But at that period (1541) the Council had not spoken, and Pole’s submission to dogmatic authority was throughout his life absolute and entire. It is possible that an exaggerated idea of those errors produced at a later date that bias in the mind of Caraffa (Paul IV) which led him so violently to suspect Pole as well as Morone (q.v.) of heretical opinions.
On the death of Henry VIII Pole with the approval of Paul III made persistent efforts to induce the Protector Somerset and the Privy Council to treat with the Holy See, but, while these overtures were received with a certain amount of civility, no encouragement was given to them. Paul III died 10 Nov., 1549, and in the conclave which followed, the English cardinal was long regarded as the favourite candidate. Indeed it seems that if on a particular occasion Pole had been willing to present himself to the cardinals, when he had nearly two-thirds of the votes, he might have been made pope “by adoration”. Later the majority in his favour began to decline, and he willingly agreed to a compromise which resulted in the election of Cardinal Del Monte (Julius III). On the votes given for Pole, see “The Tablet”, 28 Aug., 1909, pp. 340-341.
The death of Edward VI, 6 July, 1553, once more restored Pole to a very active life. Though the cardinal was absent from Rome, Julius III at once appointed him legate in England, and Pole wrote to the queen to ask her advice as to his future procedure. Both Mary’s advisers in England and the Emperor Charles V, who was from the first anxious to marry the new queen to his son Philip, considered that the country was not yet ready for the reception of a papal legate. Julius, by way of covering the credit of his envoy in the delays that might possibly ensue, entrusted Pole with a further commission to establish friendly relations between the Emperor Charles and Henry II of France. All this brought the cardinal a good many rebuffs, though he was courteously received in Paris. Charles V, however, deliberately set himself to detain Pole on the continent until the marriage between Mary and Philip had been concluded (see MARY TUDOR). Eventually Pole was not allowed to reach Dover before 20 Nov., 1554, provision having previously been made that holders of church property should not be compelled to restore the lands that they had alienated. A great reception was given to the legate upon his arrival in London, and on 30 Nov., Pole, though not even yet a priest, formally absolved the two Houses of Parliament from the guilt of schism. Owing to Pole’s royal descent and his friendship with the queen, he exercised a considerable indirect influence over affairs of state and received a special charge from Philip to watch over the kingdom during his absence. On the other hand, the cardinal does not seem to have been at all anxious to add to his responsibilities, and when Archbishop Cranmer was deprived, he showed no great eagerness to succeed him in his functions as archbishop. Still a synod of both convocations was held by him as legate in Nov., 1555, which passed many useful decrees of ecclesiastical reform, rendered necessary by the disturbed condition of the Church after twenty years of separation from Roman authority. On 20 March, 1557, Pole was ordained priest, and two days after he was consecrated archbishop, while he solemnly received the pallium on the feast of the Annunciation in the Church of St. Mary-le-Bow, delivering an address which is still preserved.
With the persecutions which have cast so regrettable a shadow over Mary’s reign Pole seems to have had little to do (Dixon, “Hist. of the Ch. of Eng.”, IV, 572). “Three condemned heretics from Bonner’s diocese were pardoned on an appeal to him; he merely enjoined a penance and gave them absolution” (ibid., 582). The cardinal was now somewhat infirm, and his last days, like those of his royal mistress, were much saddened by fresh misunderstandings with Rome, due mainly to the impetuous temper and bitter anti-Spanish feeling of Paul IV. As a Neapolitan, Paul was bent upon driving the Spaniards out of Naples, and war broke out in Italy between the pope and King Philip. The pope made an alliance with France, and Philip set deliberately to work to implicate England in the quarrel, whereupon Paul withdrew his legates from the Spanish dominions and cancelled the legation of Pole. Although the tension of this state of affairs was in some measure remedied by concessions on the part of the pope, which were wrung from him by the success of Philip’s arms, the cloud had by no means completely lifted, aggravated as it was by the pope’s perverse conviction of Pole’s doctrinal unsoundness, when the cardinal in Nov., 1558, contracted a mortal sickness and died a few hours after Queen Mary herself.
Throughout his life Pole’s moral conduct was above reproach, his sincere piety and ascetical habits were the admiration of all. “Seldom”, writes Dr. James Gairdner, than whom no one is more competent to pronounce judgment, “has any life been animated by a more single-minded purpose”. As compared with the majority of his contemporaries, Pole was conspicuously gentle, both in his opinions and in his language. He had the gift of inspiring warm friendships and he was most generous and charitable in the administration of his revenues.
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An early life of Pole was written by his secretary BECCATELLI. It may be found printed in QUIRINI’S great collection, Epistola Reginaldi Poli et aliorum ad se (5 vols., Brescia, 1744-57); upon these materials was founded the History of the Life of Reginald Pole by PHILIPPS (Oxford, 1764), which still retains its value. A more modern biography is that of “MARTIN HAILE” (Miss Mary Hallé), The Life of Reginald Pole (London, 1910); compare also ZIMMERMANN, Caridnal Pole (Freiburg, 1893); ANTONY, The Angelical Cardinal (London, 1909); LEE, Reginald Pole (London, 1888); an admirable account of Pole by GAIRDNER is given in Dict. Nat. Biog.; on the other hand the Life of Pole in HOOK’S Archbishops of Canterbury (London, 1860-84) is disfigured by conspicuous anti-Catholic animus. Much useful supplementary information is furnished by the Monumenta Concilii Tridentini, vols. I and IV (Freiburg, 1901-04), and in PASTOR, Geschichte der Päpste (Freiburg, 1908-10), IV, V. See also “The Tablet”, 28 Aug., 1909, p. 340. The edition of the letters published by QUIRINI is far from complete, and many still remain in MS.
HERBERT THURSTON Transcribed by WGKofron With thanks to St. Mary’s Church, Akron, Ohio
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Pole, Reginald
a famous English cardinal, who figures so prominently in the English Reformation period, upon whose character rests the stigma of duplicity and selfishness, and against whom both Protestants and Romanists have written in censure or praise, was descended from royal blood, being a younger son of Sir Richard Pole. lord Montague, cousin-German of king Henry VII, and Margaret, daughter of George, the duke of Clarence, and younger brother to king Edward IV. Pole was born at Stourton Castle, Staffordshire, in March, 1500. When seven years old he was sent to the Carthusian monks at Sheen for instruction. At twelve he became a student at Magdalen College, Oxford, where the famous Linacre and Will. Latimer, two great masters of Latin and Greek, were his teachers. At fifteen he took the B.A. and entered into deacon’s orders, and in 1517, the year that Luther began to preach against indulgences, Pole was made prebendary of Salisbury, to which preferment the deanery of Exeter and others were soon after added by king Henry VIII, who greatly admired Pole, and desired his elevation to the highest ecclesiastical dignity. At the age of nineteen Pole went to Italy, there to continue his studies, and was by the king afforded support suitable to his rank. He visited different universities, and finally rested at Padua, where he entered a distinguished group of scholars, among whom were Leonicus, a great philosopher and philologist, Longolius, Bembo, and Lupset, a learned Englishman. These masters were his constant companions, and they have told us how he became the delight of that part of the world for his learning, politeness, and piety. From Padua he went to Venice, where he continued for some time, and then visited other parts of Italy. Having spent five years abroad, he was recalled home; but being desirous to see the jubilee, which was celebrated this year at Rome, he went to that city: whence, passing by Florence, he returned to England, where he arrived about the end of 1525. He was received by the king, queen, court, and all the nobility with great affection and honor, and was highly esteemed, not only on account of his learning, but for the sweetness of his nature and politeness of his manners.
Devotion and study, however, being what he solely delighted in, he retired to his old habitation among the Carthusians at Sheen, where he spent two years in the free enjoyment of them. In 1529 when king Harry determined upon his divorce from Catharine of Aragon, Pole, foreseeing the troubles consequent upon this, and how he must needs be involved in them, resolved to withdraw, and obtained leave of his majesty to go to Paris. Here he continued in quiet till the king, prosecuting the affair of the divorce and sending to the most noted universities in Europe for their opinion upon the illegitimacy of his marriage, commanded him to concur with his agents in procuring the approval for his contemplated step from the faculty of the University of Paris. Pole left the affair to the commissioners, excusing himself to the king as unfit for the employ, since his studies had lain another way. Henry was angry, upon which Pole returned to England in order to pacify him; but failing in this, and unwilling to make a tool of himself to the king in his questionable designs, Pole returned to Sheen, where he continued two years. It has been asserted that scruples of conscience and of religion were not his only motive: that, though a priest, he was not without hope of marrying the princess Mary Tudor, and that it was not without such views that Catharine of Aragon had committed the education of her daughter to his mother, the countess of Salisbury. Henry at length perceiving that the court of Rome resolved to oppose the affair of the divorce, conceived a resolution to shake off their authority, and to rely upon his own subjects. Pole was again pressed, but as steadfastly refused as before, even under the temptation of being made archbishop of York if he should comply with the king’s demands.
The king having dismissed Pole in anger, he consulted his safety by leaving the kingdom, and rejoined the company of the distinguished men he had known abroad. he first year he spent at Avignon; but as his health declined there he went to Padua, making now and then excursions to his friends at Venice. The literary circle in which he moved was formed by Caraffa (Paul IV), Sadoleto, Gilberto, Fregoso, archbishop of Salerno, Bembo, and Contarini. These men even embraced the doctrine of justification, and in their social meetings discussed the means of reforming the papacy-their great principle being to preserve the unity of the Church under the papal government. In Italy, during the reign of Henry VIII, Reginald Pole rose to great distinction, and on the accession of Paul III in 1534 was raised to the cardinalate, as were his friends just mentioned. Thus the days passed very agreeably in Italy, while fresh troubles were rising in England. Henry had not only divorced Catharine, but married Anne Boleyn, and resolved to throw off the papal yoke and assert his right to the supremacy, with the title of Supreme Head of the Church. To this end he procured a book to be written in defense of that title by Sampson, bishop of Chichester, which he immediately sent to Pole for his confirmation. Pole, taking courage from the security of the pope’s protection, not only disapproved the king’s divorce and separation from the apostolic see, but shortly after drew up a treatise, entitled De unitate ecclesiasticat, in which he controverted the pretensions of Henry to the headship of the Church, and compared him to Nebuchadnezzar. He forwarded a copy of it to the king, who, displeased with Pole, under pretence of wanting some passage to be explained, sent for him to England; but Pole, aware that to deny the king’s supremacy was high- treason there, and considering the fate of More and Fisher, refused to obey the call. The king therefore resolved to keep measures with him no longer, and accordingly his pension was withdrawn, he was stripped of all his dignities in England, and an act of attainder passed against him.
Pole was abundantly compensated for these losses and sufferings by the bounty of the pope and emperor. At the same time Paul III, having in view a general council for the reform of the Church, called to Rome several persons renowned for their learning, and among them Pole, to represent England. In vain his mother, brothers, and friends tried to dissuade him from going to Rome. After some wavering, the exhortations of his friend Contarini prevailed over the fears of his family, and lie went to Rome in 1536. There he was, against his earnest wish, created cardinal, Dec. 22, 1536. Two months afterwards (February, 1537) Paul appointed him his legate on the other side of the Alps, and sent him on a most delicate and dangerous errand. The rebellion of the northern Catholics against Henry VIII seemed to the pope a favorable occasion to attempt the reconciliation of England with the Roman see. The legate’s instructions were to promote a good understanding between the emperor and the king of France, to establish himself in the Netherlands, and if circumstances allowed of such a course to pass over to England. Scarcely had he put his foot on the French territory when Cromwell, his personal foe, claimed him in virtue of an article of a treaty concluded between Francis and Henry; but, secretly put on his guard by the king himself, he pursued his journey with the utmost speed, and stopped only at Cambrai. The regent here refused to allow him to enter the Netherlands; and, after a short stay with the prince-bishop of Liege, he was obliged to make his way back to Rome (August, 1537).
At the same time Henry VIII set a price of fifty thousand crowns on his head, and promised to the emperor a subsidy of four thousand men in his war against Francis for his extradition. If the pope had up to that time shrunk from extreme measures against the schism of England, it was because lie felt powerless to put them into execution. Having succeeded in restoring peace between the two great rulers of the Continent, he at last published his bull of excommunication. Pole was sent in secret mission to the courts of Spain and France; but forestalled by the English agents, lie could only get evasive answers. Charles, at Toledo, declared that he had more urgent business to attend to, but that he was ready to fulfill the promises made by him to the pope if Francis assisted him without afterthought. Francis, in his turn, protested his good will, but besought the legate not to enter his states if he did not bring some positive proof of the emperor’s sincerity. After carrying on negotiations for several months, Pole came to the conclusion that he was being deluded on both sides, and advised the pope to wait patiently for a better opportunity to turn up in the course of political events. His share in these negotiations proved fatal to his relations. Henry wreaked his savage vengeance on him by sending to execution his brother, lord Montague, and his aged mother, lady Salisbury, who was dragged to the scaffold May 17, 1541. The second brother of the cardinal, Sir Geoffrey, saved his life by revealing the secrets of his relations and friends. In 1539 cardinal Pole was sent to Viterbo, where, in the exercise of his functions, until 1542, he distinguished himself by his piety, the encouragement he gave to letters, and his tolerance towards the Protestants. In 1545 he repaired to Trent, under strong escort, to superintend the works preparatory to the council. After the death of Henry (1547), he wrote to the Privy Council in favor of the Catholic communion, and to Edward VI in justification of his acts; but his letters were left unopened. Pole’s book, De unitate ecclesiastica. was published in Rome in 1536; and though, as Burnet, says, it was more esteemed for the high quality of the author than for any sound reasoning in it, it yet gave the most certain proof of his invincible attachment and zeal for the see of Rome, and was therefore sufficient to build the strongest confidence upon. Accordingly Pole was employed in negotiations and transactions of high concern, was consulted by the pope in all affairs relating to kings and sovereign princes, was made one of his legates at the Council of Trent, and, lastly, his penman when occasion required. Thus, for instance, when the pope’s power to remove that council was contested by the emperor’s ambassador, Pole drew up a vindication of that proceeding; and when the emperor set forth the interim, was employed to answer it. This was in 1548, and pope Paul III dying the next year, our cardinal was twice elected to succeed him, but refused both the election: one as being too hasty and without due deliberation, and the other because it was done in the nighttime. This unexampled delicacy disgusted several of his friends in the conclave, who thereupon concurred in choosing Julius III, March 30, 1550. The tranquility of Rome being soon after disturbed by the wars in France and on the borders of Italy, Pole retired to a monastery in the territory of Verona, where lie lived agreeably to his natural humor till the death of king Edward VI in July, 1553.
On the accession of queen Mary, Pole was appointed legate for England, as the fittest instrument to reduce that kingdom to an obedience to the pope; but he did not think it safe to venture his person thither till he knew the queen’s intentions with regard to the reestablishment of the Romish religion, and also whether the act of attainder which had passed against him under Henry, and confirmed by Edward, was repealed. It was not long before he received satisfaction upon both these points; and he set out for England, by way of Germany, in October 1553. The emperor, suspecting a design in queen Mary to marry Pole, contrived means to stop his progress; nor did he arrive in England till November, 1554, when her marriage with Philip of Spain was completed. (The English ecclesiastical historian Soames thinks that Pole was delayed by bishop Gardiner, who himself desired this distinguished post.) On his arrival Pole was conducted to the archbishop’s palace at Lambeth, Cranmer being then attainted and imprisoned; and on the 28th went to the Parliament and made a long and grave speech, inviting them to a reconciliation with the apostolic see, for which purpose, he said, he was sent by the common pastor of Christendom. This speech of Pole occasioned some motion in the queen, which she vainly thought was a child quickened within her womb: so that the joy of the times was redoubled, some not scrupling to say that as John the Baptist leaped in his mother’s womb at the salutation of the Virgin, so here the like happiness attended the salutation of Christ’s vicar. The Parliament being absolved by Pole, all went to the royal chapel, where the Te Deum was sung on the occasion; and thus, the pope’s authority being now restored, the cardinal, two days afterwards, made his public entry into London, with all the solemnities of a legate, and presently set about reforming the Church and freeing it from heresy. In conformity with a pontifical bull, he published a decree by which, 1, churches, hospitals, and schools founded during the schisms should be preserved; 2, persons who had married at unlawful degrees without dispensation should be considered as legitimately united; 3, buyers of ecclesiastical property should not be disturbed in their possession. But such a triumph did not satisfy the fanatics. Encouraged by the chancellor, Gardiner, they filled England during four years with those horrors which left forever a bloody stain on Mary’s memory. Pole had formerly been suspected of favoring the Reformation, because he had advocated in the Council of Trent (q.v.) and at Ratisbon (q.v.) the adoption by the Church of Rome of the doctrine of justification as held by the Protestants, and being now anxious to satisfy the Papists, altered in his actions, and became the severe opponent of all Protestants. In the cruel measures which were adopted it is sometimes claimed for Pole that he had no direct part, as he was by nature humane and of good temper, and had ever previously proved most lenient to Protestants; but it would appear as if Pole, in his desire to please the pope and the queen, did adopt sterner measures than heretofore. The poet Tennyson has recently taken the favorable view of Pole’s conduct, and thus makes him speak of his decision how to reconcile the heretics:
For ourselves, we do protest That our commission is to heal, not harm; We come not to condemn, but reconcile; We come not to compel, but call again; We come not to destroy, but edify; Nor yet to question things already done: These are forgiven-matters of the past And range with jetsam and with offal thrown Into the blind sea of forgetfulness (Queen Mary, Acts 3, scene 3).
In a later scene he makes bishop Gardiner (q.v.) the persecutor, and Pole the advocate and friend of the heretic:
Indeed, I cannot follow with your grace; Rather would say-the shepherd doth not kill The sheep that wander from his flock, but sends His careful dog to bring them to the fold (Acts 3, scene 4).
There is somewhat to favor this interpretation of Pole’s acts. After the death of pope Julius, and his successor Marcellus, who rapidly followed him to the grave, the queen recommended Pole to the popedom; but Peter Caraffa, who took the name of Paul IV, was elected before her dispatches arrived. This pope, who had never liked our cardinal, was pleased with Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, whose temper exactly tallied with his own; and therefore favored his views upon the see of Canterbury in opposition to Pole, whose nomination to that dignity was not confirmed by him till the death of his rival, which happened Nov. 13, 1555. After Pole’s decease, pope Paul IV himself acknowledged that if the cardinal’s humane policy had been accepted, England might not have been lost again to Rome.
After his elevation to the legateship of England, Pole had the sole management and regulation of ecclesiastical affairs in that country. His concurrence in the butcheries of Protestants did not, however, secure him against the attacks of his old enemy Paul IV, who upon various pretences accused him as a suspected heretic, summoned him to Rome to answer the charge, and, depriving him of his legantine powers, conferred them upon Peyto, a Franciscan friar, whom he had made a cardinal for that purpose. The new legate was upon the road for England when queen Mary, apprised of his business, assumed some of her father’s spirit, and forbade him at his peril to set foot upon English ground. Pole, however, was no sooner informed of the pontiffs pleasure, or rather displeasure, than, out of that implicit veneration which he constantly and unalterably preserved for the apostolic see, he voluntarily laid down the legate’s ensigns and forbore the exercise of its power, dispatching his trusty minister Ornameto to Rome with letters clearing him in such submissive terms as melted even the obdurate heart of Paul. The cardinal was restored to his legantine powers soon after, but did not live to enjoy them a full twelvemonth, being seized with a double quartanague, which carried him off, Nov. 17, 1558. During his illness he often inquired after her majesty, and his death is said to have been hastened by that of his royal mistress, which, as if one star had governed both their nativities, happened about sixteen hours before. After lying forty days in state at Lambeth, Pole’s remains were carried to Canterbury, and there interred. He was a learned, eloquent, modest, humble, and good-natured man, of exemplary piety and charity, as well as generosity becoming his birth. Though by nature he was more inclined to study and contemplation than to active life yet he was prudent and dexterous in business, so that he would have been a finished character had not his superstitious devotion to the see of Rome led him from the path his own convictions marked out to him. Burnet, who has drawn Pole in very favorable colors, acknowledges this fault in the great cardinal. Froude’s delineation of Pole as a narrow-minded and fanatical bigot is precisely the reverse of the fact. Pole, like his friend Contarini, was a leading member of that moderate party of Romanists who, though they dreaded the disruption of Christendom, desired a reform not only in the discipline but also in the doctrine of the Church. From this position he was only scared by fear of losing his mitre. This betrays a weakness, it is true, but rather of ambition than of fanaticism or narrow-mindedness. It is, besides, unjust to make Pole the sole responsible party for the persecutions which were inaugurated; for Fox (8, 308) has furnished clear evidence against such an insinuation. He even gives two instances where Pole personally interfered to save Protestants from execution. All that Pole did, even at the worst, was to suffer the law to take its course, and not preventing what he knew should not have been done. But, of course, this is bad enough; we only desire that it be made no worse. Hook has taken a view very much dependent on Froude. In the instructions which Pole was putting out at the time of his decease for the clergy, and in the devotional books which he was putting together for his people, it is hard to find anything but good- sense, deep piety, and hearty benevolence.
Pole wrote various controversial and theological tracts, besides the work above referred to. Among these publications are, Liber de Concilio (Venet. 1562, 8vo, and elsewhere): Refoirmatio Anglica ex Decretis ipsius Sedis Apostolicae Legati anno MDLVI (Rome, 1562, 4to); one of the most elegant pieces of composition in the Latin language, and which, for perspicuity, good-sense, and solid reasoning, is equal to the importance of the occasion on which it was written (Phillips, Sacred Literature): De Summo Pontifices Christi in Terris Viecario et de ejus Officis et Potestate; a Treatise of Justification (Lovanii, 1569, 4to); this work is reported to have been found among the writings of cardinal Pole. See Hume, Hist. of England, ch. 37 (very favorable); Froude, Hist. of England, 6:369 sq.; Collier, Eccles. Hist. of England (see Index in vol. 7); Schrckh, Kirchengesch. seit der Ref. 2, 575 sq.; Soames, Hist. of the Ref. 1, 251 sq.; 2, 185 sq., 229 sq., 327 sq., 357 sq.; 4. 66 sq., 77, 238, 495, 545 sq., 577 sq., 595; Ffoulkes, Divisions in Christendom, 1, 63; Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (Lond. 1869), vol. 3; Hardwick, Hist. of the Reformation, p. 64, et al.; Seebohm, Hist. of the Prot. Religion, p. 194, 206, 212; North H’Bit. Rev. Jan. 1870, p. 283; Westminster Rev. April 1871, p. 266; and especially the references in Allibone, Dict. of Brit. and Amer. Authors, s.v.