17
November 1558 A.D. Reginald
“Polecat” Pole—70th of 105 Archbishops of Canterbury; Cardinal & Persecutorial Agent of the
Bishop of Italy Operating on English Soil
Editors. “Reginald Pole.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 6
Aug 2013. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/467205/Reginald-Pole. Accessed 31 May 2014.
Reginald Pole, (born March 3, 1500, Stourton Castle, Staffordshire, Eng.—died Nov.
17, 1558, London), English prelate
who broke with King Henry VIII over Henry’s antipapal policies and
later became a cardinal and a powerful figure in
the government of the Roman Catholic
queen Mary Tudor.
His father, Sir
Richard Pole, was a cousin of King Henry VII, and his mother, Margaret,
countess of Salisbury, was a niece of Edward IV. In recognition of Pole’s
royal descent, his cousin, Henry VIII, paid for Pole’s
education at Oxford University and at Padua, Italy, and gave him
minor offices in the church. Nevertheless, when Henry’s attempts to obtain an
annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon
encountered resistance from Pope Clement VII, Pole found himself unable to
support the king’s cause. He therefore withdrew to Padua in 1532 and immersed
himself in theological studies. In 1536 Pole completed and sent to Henry a long
treatise attacking his claim of royal supremacy over the English church and
strongly defending the pope’s spiritual authority. The document was later
published, without Pole’s consent, as Pro
ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione (“In Defense of Ecclesiastical
Unity”).
Pole could no
longer return to England. Remaining in Italy, he
was made cardinal by Pope Paul III in December 1536, and he
served on the commission that produced the important document Consilium de emendanda ecclesia
(1537; “Plan for Church Reform”), a report on abuses in the church with
recommendations for reforms. Between 1537 and 1539 the pope sent Pole on two
diplomatic missions to persuade Europe’s Catholic monarchs to ally against
Henry. Both endeavours were totally unsuccessful, and Henry, in revenge for
Pole’s treasonous activities, executed Pole’s brother, Lord Montague, in 1538
and his mother in 1541. In August 1541 Pole was appointed papal governor of the
Patrimony of St. Peter (the area around Rome). He took up residence at Viterbo
and gathered around him a group of humanists. Later, he was the presiding
legate at the Council of Trent; and, upon the death of Paul III in November
1549, Pole, with backing from the Holy Roman emperor Charles V, was nearly
elected pope. The office fell to Julius III only after the French and Italian
prelates refused to endorse Pole’s candidacy.
On the accession of
Mary Tudor to the English throne in July 1553, the pope at once appointed Pole
legate for England. He landed at Dover on Nov. 20, 1554, and 10 days later
formally received the country back into the Catholic fold. He then began to
refound the monasteries, and in November 1555 he assembled at Westminster a
synod that instituted a number of church reforms. Soon Pole was virtually
running the government. Although he was not directly responsible for the
burnings of Protestants that marked Mary’s reign, he did not oppose them. Pole
was made archbishop of Canterbury in March 1556.
Regrettably for
Pole, Paul IV, the pope elected in 1555, was a longtime
bitter enemy of Catholic humanism and of the attempts of men like Pole to
soften the teachings of Catholicism to win back those who had deserted to
Protestantism. Further infuriated by Mary’s support for her husband, Philip II of Spain, in his temporal
conflicts with the papacy, Paul IV first canceled Pole’s
legatine authority and then sought to recall Pole to Rome to face investigation
for heresy in his earlier writings.
Mary refused to let Pole leave England, but he accepted his suspension from
office. He died, demoralized, a few hours after Queen Mary herself died on Nov.
17, 1558.
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