Welcome to The Plantagenet’s Episode Six! And our season one finale, and end to the Plantagenet’s, and into new dynasties.
I hope you have enjoyed the first season of Tdr Now & The Heritage Hunters Podcast with Dawn Piercy and the Heritage Huntress.
After the end of this episode, Thursday Heather the Heritage Huntress will become public on Instagram for use if anyone needs help breaking down those brick walls. Remember though she is somewhat trusty. Do not believe everything said, always cross reference your self to make sure links are legit. I gather links personally for this blog.
In this episode we get out of the War of the Roses, and onwards with Henry VIII. The mess he made. He is such a coulda shoulda woulda … Yodda Yodda, yip yap. And that is my non bias opinion.
In this episode we wrap up the War of the Roses and get into the The Exeter Conspiracy in 1538 which was a supposed attempt to overthrow Henry VIII, who had taken control of the Church of England away from the Pope, and replace him with Henry Courtenay, 1st Marquess of Exeter, who was a first cousin of the King.
Always a full pot of tea in my family, never a dull moment it seems.
Grab you saucers, don’t lose your heads, and tune in below for a full cup of tea. Do not forget your napkin either. It’s the season finale, and more may spilled than necessary.
Sir Richard Pole, KG husband of Margaret Plantagenet AKA Pole.
Born: c. 1462
Died: 1505 (aged ~43)
Son of Sir Geoffrey Pole and Edith St John (half-sister of Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII).
Knight of the Garter and loyal supporter of Henry VII.
Married Margaret c.1487–1491, strengthening Tudor-Yorkist ties.
👶 Children of Margaret & Richard Pole
1. Henry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu
Born: c. 1492
Executed: 9 January 1539, Tower Hill, London (aged ~47)
Elevated to peerage as Baron Montagu in 1514.
Member of Henry VIII’s Privy Council.
Executed for alleged involvement in the Exeter Conspiracy.
2. Sir Arthur Pole
Born: c. 1499
Died: 1527 (aged ~28)
Married Jane Lewkenor.
Had children including Henry, Arthur, and Geoffrey Pole (the younger generation who were later involved in Elizabethan conspiracies).
3. Cardinal Reginald Pole
Born: 12 March 1500, Stourton Castle, Staffordshire
Died: 17 November 1558, Lambeth Palace, London (aged 58)
Educated at Oxford and Padua.
Opposed Henry VIII’s break with Rome.
Made Cardinal in 1536, nearly elected Pope in 1549–50.
Archbishop of Canterbury (1556–1558) under Mary I.
Died hours after Queen Mary I, buried at Canterbury Cathedral.
4. Sir Geoffrey Pole
Born: c. 1501
Died: 1558 (aged ~57)
Married Constance Pakenham.
Imprisoned in the Tower multiple times under suspicion of treason.
Survived Henry VIII, dying under Mary I’s reign.
5. Ursula Pole
Born: c. 1504
Died: 12 August 1570 (aged ~66)
Married Henry Stafford, 1st Baron Stafford (son of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, who was executed in 1521).
Had 13 children, linking the Poles to the Stafford line.
Reginald Pole (1500–1558) — Cardinal and Archbishop
Birth & Background
Born 12 March 1500 at Stourton Castle, Staffordshire; son of Sir Richard Pole and Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury.
New Advent
Great-nephew of both Edward IV and Richard III, and cousin to Henry VIII.
Education & Early Career
Educated at Magdalen College, Oxford (BA in 1515) and later at Padua, where he embraced Renaissance humanism.
Held ecclesiastical posts funded by the king until conflicts over Henry VIII’s annulment led him into self-imposed exile in Italy and France.
Heritage History
Break with Henry VIII & Cardinalate
Opposed the king’s divorce and break from Rome. In 1536, he published Pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione, denouncing Henry and urging European princes to depose him.
Heritage History
Created a cardinal by Pope Paul III in December 1536; served as papal legate, and fled an assassination attempt by Henry’s agents.
VEC Heritage Collections
Role in Reformation & Return to England
Participated in the Council of Trent as a papal legate and narrowly missed becoming pope in the 1549–50 conclave.
Heritage History
Returned to England under Mary I as papal legate and Archbishop of Canterbury from 1556 to 1558, presiding over Catholic restoration.
During his tenure, he had both spiritual and political influence, though his involvement in Marian persecutions remains debated; he reportedly showed clemency in some cases.
Final Years & Death
Ordained in March 1556 and assumed full archiepiscopal duties.
Died of influenza on 17 November 1558 in London, about 12 hours after Queen Mary I’s death. Buried at Canterbury Cathedral.
Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury (1473–1541) at St Mary’s
Overview & Early Life
Born 14 August 1473 at Farleigh Hungerford Castle, Somerset.
Daughter of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence (brother of Edward IV and Richard III), and Isabel Neville.
The Tudor Society
A rare peeress in her own right (“suo jure”) in the early 16th century.
Marriage & Family
Married Sir Richard Pole (circa 1487 or 1491), arranged by Henry VII to dilute her Yorkist claim.
Widowed in 1505, she was left to care for their children, among them Reginald Pole, Henry, Arthur, Ursula, and Geoffrey.
Royal Connections & Court Life
Became Lady-in-Waiting to Catherine of Aragon and later governess to Princess Mary.
Restored to the Earldom of Salisbury and granted extensive lands and properties by Henry VIII.
Political Downfall & Execution
As Henry’s break with Rome began, Margaret’s staunch Catholic allegiance—and her son Reginald’s outspoken opposition—put her in peril.
Historic Royal Palaces
Arrested in 1538, executed at the Tower of London on 27 May 1541 at age 67. Her execution was reportedly botched, requiring multiple blows.
Historic Royal Palaces
Clash Cultures
Legacy
Reginald famously declared himself “the son of a martyr”.
EWTN Global Catholic Television Network
Beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 29 December 1886, honored as Blessed Margaret Pole in the Catholic Church.
EWTN Global Catholic Television Network
Featured in stained glass and panel paintings across English churches.
Sources, refrences, books to check out and links below! If interested in knowing how I am related, information is in the slideshow below.
🌿 Extended Family & Descendants
Through Ursula, and one of her brothers, the Pole bloodline continued into the Stafford family, and beyond.
Reginald had no children (as a Cardinal).
The younger Arthur Pole’s sons (grandsons of Margaret) later became involved in the Pole Plot against Elizabeth I (1560s). And offspring migrated to the United States of America and beyond. I am one of the offspring of Ursula and her brother.
📚 Sources & References
Hazel Pierce, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541: Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership (2009).
https://books.google.com/books/about/Margaret_Pole_Countess_of_Salisbury_1473.html?id=5cEmDAAAQBAJ
Susan Higginbotham, Margaret Pole: The Countess in the Tower (2016).
https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Pole-Countess-Susan-Higginbotham/dp/1605989533
Wikipedia – Margaret Pole:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Pole%2C_Countess_of_Salisbury
Wikipedia – Reginald Pole:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Pole
Wikipedia – Henry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Pole,_1st_Baron_Montagu
Wikipedia – Geoffrey Pole:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Pole
Wikipedia – Ursula Pole, Baroness Stafford:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Pole,_Baroness_Stafford
Key Scholarly / Primary Sources
Dodds, Madeleine Hope, and Ruth Dodds. The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536-1537, and the Exeter Conspiracy, 1538. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1915. (Vols. 1 & 2)
Archive link: https://archive.org/details/pilgrimageofgrac01dodduoft
Also Volume 2: https://archive.org/details/pilgrimageofgrac02dodduoft
Seward, Desmond. “The ‘Exeter Conspiracy’ of 1538: The Extermination of the White Rose.” History Today, Vol. 61, Issue 1, January 2011.
History Today
“Autumn 1538: The ‘Exeter Conspiracy’ – The Last White Rose.” E-Renow / The Last White Rose: The Secret Wars of the Tudors (online article).
Exeter Conspiracy.” Wikipedia entry https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exeter_Conspiracy
Thank you for stopping to learn about these key figures in history, that just happen to be my ancestors, and family history.
To be honest, I actually grew up not knowing any of this information. As a family historian since the age of 10, with my grandmother’s, maternal, and paternal, my grandfathers, my father, we went to the actual National Archive buildings, to index, find sources, and I have around 30 years worth of paperwork. Not digital. So when I started taking genealogy classes about 25 years ago, and I have taken many classes. I started to learn about making family trees on paper, where to go find stuff then when digital came I took classes on how to make gedcom files from living trees, learning what a living tree is, I took classes on source indexing, how to merge multiple accounts without deleting the wrong person, and just attach sources to those past. That is what I do. Its been a family tradition passed down, generation to generation, to search for records and know where we come from. I can let my parents know beyond the veil, and all those that searched before me, i did it dad! I did it grandma! Look mom, I know who we are, and where we became lost, and how to get on our feet again, in the sense of knowing where we come from and what strongholds to release… We could only find that our immediate family is mixed European, and Native American. I have the trail of tears cards my family walked on. DAWES rolls. I grew up dancing in Pow-Wows, I even speak western band Cherokee. I have more than 7 Native American lines that go back to me testing positive to the Native American mummy found in the Spirit Cave in Nevada from over 10k years old they say. Talk about American roots! And Mayan, Incan, and other South American Indigenous groups. This will be my next season actually, and being the Season 1 finale now, and know Season 2 is already ready set to be pre recorded for the next season, I have a little more indexing to do first! Some of my immediate family somehow became indentured servants to come to America for safety. To get passage. John Pearcy/Percy did, and when he completed it, King Charles II another supposed one I tested direct to, supposedly gave my great grandfather a whole bunch of land. In Virginia. Now that is a next project too. It’s a lifestyle and a lifelong journey. To find the sources, the paper trail, my favorite hunt! Putting my ancestors lives together to be remembered, honored, prayed over, properly mourned by a descendant, and those strongholds let go of. And another ancestor, Henry Lyons another one, my however many great grandfather the co-founder of Newark, New Jersey. Earlier this year I found the founder of Salem, Massachusetts, and Boston too. I’ll add their names in the 3rd season… see I’m thinking ahead. Martin Luther is one too.
I have so much tea!!! Timelines and Tea, yes, I love it!
Some, I have blogged about in my family history blog. DP Family Tree I added some people’s booboos I screenshoted to go back, email the perpetrator, get the sources fixed, dates corrected, and make sure they don’t delete more history, attach the wrong people, mostly accidental I would hope, I know some do this on purpose.
Many people practice on living trees, so the information is not always correct. People get deleted, merged, you fall off, much is corrected and sources added and then you get someone that doesn’t know what they are doing in there again and they mess it up. Add fake people. Say they are someone they are not. It’s important to get a autosomal, a mtDNA, for everyone, and Y-DNA test if you are a biological male to confirm you are indeed as close as you look, are actually from what your tree says and match up. If of course this is something you are interested in!
Halpogroup Exploration is an amazing experience too, and can be a very joyful one that can be shared with friends and family that are interested, tested, compare, and see what genetic mutations there are if any and such forth. Not all DNA is shared equally among siblings either. I do not look like my mother or father. I do not look like my family. I look like my ancestors. Why? When my parents married, I found out actually just this year, they are 4th cousin’s, and all of my grandparents are cousins, as are all my ancestors maternal and paternal are the same family. This triggered me to have old DNA patterns pop back up genetically bringing me back to fill circle in my direct line.
Aside from the Native Americans, the only ancestors I really knew about growing up. Those tribes, and Clans I am from is Wolf Clan, western band and eastern band. I was registered federally and state for years with the Cherokee Wolf Clan, Yuma, TN,… registered there because my 6th great grandmother on my dad’s side being the known Cherokee matriarch Granny SuGi Hopper Moytoy, and from the Cherokee War Chief, Chief Stalking Turkey, Chief Standing Turkey Granny Hops Father, Old Hop, I need more information to collect, they were over the Wolf Clan for Centuries until the tourch passed. I met the last Chief with my father and we went to the Cherokee Wolf Clan Church too, read the Holy Bible in Cherokee, sang in Cherokee. It was an amazing experience, may Chief Many Coates RIP 🙏.
I found some books that mention them. My ancestors and the Blue Piant Clan, and Wolf Clan. So on my paternal and maternal sides it is Wolf Clan, and one link via the Seneca War Chief Govenor Blacksnake “Chainbreaker” Moytoy Wilson, I’m 7th generation to him. I will cover this in more detail in the next season! And get the numbers, my sources and such. I never really told anyone details on this side of my family aside last names, as my late husband knew, I knew, my family too, and that was enough for me. I will add the information below. It did take years to get the roll card. The Dawes Roll. And Native information too, a lot of it, took decades actually. DNA confirmed.
This is the season finale, if you love the Plantagenet’s, shop our custom designs, original artwork, GRAND OPENING Thunder’s Reign multi-media site! Get your own merch customized for yourself too. I will be running a Masterclass on Genealogy in December as well. Contact me if interested in learning how to build your own family tree! The official site will be thundersreign.com … it is not connected yet, or up and running, I’m building it now. Stay tuned!
Funny the secrets our history holds when we could have never known. But now do. A distant past, memories, moving forward not repeating mistakes of the past. We learn to better ourselves, humble our spirits, and know no matter the situation always forge ahead in faith. Hope, love and perseverance. Never cease to move forward. What i want out of life is, I only want to garden, and have a genealogy library too.
Your Host,
Dawn Piercy, PhD aka Mary Caulder Stewart
Tdr Now & The Heritage Hunters Podcast 