Margaret PLANTAGENET, Countess Of Salisbury

Other Events:

• Name: 14th Countess Of SALISBURY
• _UID: 56A39B14975F45269698C7EEDF216372C1DB

Notes:

BARONY OF MONTAGU (X) 1513

EARLDOM OF SALISBURY (XIV, 1) 1513 to 1519

MARGARET PLANTAGENET, daughter of George (PLANTAGENET), DUKE OF CLARENCE, EARL OF SALISBURY, by Isabel, 1st daughter and coheir of Richard (NEVILL), EARL OF WARWICK and EARL OF SALISBURY, was born in August 1473, at Farley Castle, near Bath, Somerset. She married, probably by November 1487, Sir Richard POLE, K.G. (23 April 1499), who died before 20 October 1504, aged circa 45. On the death, 28 November 1499, of her brother, Richard (PLANTAGENET), EARL OF WARWICK, 1st and only surviving son of George, Duke of Clarence, she became sole heir, not only of her father, but of the Earls of Warwick and Earls of Salisbury. She was Lady of the Chamber to Queen Catherine of Aragon, 1509. Henry VIII gave her an annuity of ?100 during pleasure, 31 July 1509, and he granted to her and her heirs for ever the possessions of Richard, late Earl of Salisbury, her grandfather, son and heir of Alice, Countess of Salisbury, and husband of Anne, Countess of Warwick, which came into the King's hands by her brother's attainder, 14 October 1513. She was also, in accordance with her petition, restored "to the dignity of COUNTESS OF SALISBURY" by Act of Parliament [5 Henry VIII c. 12), when her brother's attainder was removed. She took part in the christening of the Princess Mary at Greenwich, 21 February 1515/6; Governess of the Princess from before 13 May 1520 to shortly after 1 October 1533; accompanied her into Wales 1525; slightly implicated in the case of the revelations of Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent, 1533. She returned to Court and the King gave her lands in Yorkshire, 1536. In 1538 Henry VIII struck at the family of Pole, on account both of their descent from 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. Her youngest son, Sir Geoffrey Pole, was sent to the Tower, 29 August 1538, and he was followed, 4 November, by her 1st son, Henry, Lord Montagu. Information was laid against her; she was examined at her house at Warblington, Hants, by William (Fitzwilliam), Earl of Southampton, Lord High Admiral, and Thomas Goodrich, Bishop of Ely, 12 and 13 November 1538, and then removed to the former's house at Cowdray, where she remained until she was transferred to the Tower of London, after 20 March but before 20 May 1539. She was attainted by Act of Parliament (31 Hen. VIII, c. 15) without trial, 12 May 1539, whereby all her honours were forfeited. She was beheaded in the Tower, 28 May 1541[d].

She was the last surviving member of the great royal House of Anjou, now usually known as the Plantagenets. [Complete Peerage XI:399-402, XIV:567, (transcribed by Dave Utzinger)]

[d] Marillac, the French Ambassador, writes to Francis I, 29 May 1541: "The countess of Saalberi, mother of Cardinal Pol and the late lord Montaigue, was yesterday morning, about 7 o'clock, beheaded in a corner of the Tower, in presence of so few people that until evening the truth was still doubted". . . Writing to Queen Mary of Hungary, 10 June 1541, Chapuys speaks of her "very strange and lamentable execution," which took place at the Tower in the presence of the Lord Mayor of London and about 150 persons more." In the absence of the executioner in the North "a wretched and blundering youth was chosen, who literally hacked her head and shoulders to pieces in the most pitiful manner." . . . Lord Herbert of Cherbury relates that he was assured by a person of great quality that she refused to lay her head on the block, saying: "So should Traitors do, and I am none: neither did it serve that the Executioner told her it was the fashion; so turning her gray head every way, shee bid him, if he would have her head, to get it as he could: So that he was, constrained to fetch it off slovenly" (Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth, 1649, P. 468).-This reads like a later legend, invented to account for the way in which the execution was bungled.