May 28th. Blessed Margaret Pole.

Although beatified and not yet canonised, Blessed Margaret is given an honorary place in this column. She was born at Farley Castle, Bath in 1473, daughter of George Duke of Clarence [brother of Edward IV] and granddaughter of Warwick ‘the Kingmaker’. She was brought up at Sheen and Warwick and then at the court of Richard III; when Richard III’s son died, Margaret’s brother the Earl of Warwick became heir to the throne, but the battle of Bosworth, the death of Richard III and the accession of Henry VII put paid to that; her brother was judicially ‘disposed of’ in 1499, allegedly for trying to escape from the Tower. Henry VII arranged her marriage to Sir Richard Pole, one of his reliable supporters and Governor of Prince Arthur, the King’s eldest son. The sickly Prince Arthur married Catherine of Aragon and Margaret Pole was one of her ladies-in-waiting. The Spanish princess seems to have had a particular affection for Margaret and helped restore her family’s position after the death of Margaret’s husband in 1503. Restoration of family honours allowed Margaret to assume the title of Countess of Salisbury. Margaret’s most famous son was Reginald, later Cardinal Pole, a man so highly thought of by Henry VIII that he was considered as a successor to Wolsey as Archbishop of York.