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Victoria and Flora

It is more interesting to watch a drama about a much later monarch when one is better informed than before. Lady Flora Rawdon-Hastings, the lady in waiting who appeared to be pregnant but was suffering from a cancer that proved terminal after a few months, was the sister of the 2nd Marquess of Hastings and 7th Earl of Loudoun, the senior descendant of George Duke of Clarence via Catherine Pole’s marriage to Francis Baron Hastings:

Jenna Coleman, who plays the young Queen, has been photographed with Prince Henry and some newspapers are speculating about them. An addled historian in Hampshire has suggested that any relationship would have amounted to incest, even though her character died at least eighty years before he was born,even if she obtained a dispensation before filming began.

The programme, by the way, is rather good so far.Hicksosaurus



Henry Pole the Younger rides again?

Yes, that Henry Pole. A contact asked us recently whether his mother (nee’ Jane Neville) had been arrested in November 1538 and executed with her husband (Henry Lord Montagu) and others that December or January. Online sources are confused about this. However, we do know that she was the daughter of George Baron Bergavenny and was born at about the same time as Montagu (1492), because Henry the Younger was probably under sixteen in 1542 and was not openly executed for this reason.

Pierce’s Margaret of Salisbury biography confirms that Jane’s death preceded the plot and possably pressaged Montagu’s participation in it, although her brother Sir Edward Neville was among those arrested and executed. The CP, citing the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, confirms Jane’s death by 26 October 1538 and Sir Edward’s subsequent execution.

The ODNB states that Henry the Younger, together with his exiled and yet to be ordained uncle Reginald, was being considered by the plotters as a husband for Princess Mary. This may explain why he too was arrested and disappeared, yet his married elder sisters (Catherine and Winifred) were not.

Incidentally, Jane Neville was also descended from Constance of York.

The Complete Peerage (vol. IX,pp.9-7)
Margaret Pole 1473-1541: Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership (p.64 ) (or hardback)

Of well-connected Archbishops





To answer a visitors’ question:

We have had a few views recently, asking “why was arthur pole executed?”. Well, we don’t think he was.

There were several Arthur Poles:
1) The first (Sir Arthur, 1502-35) was probably the youngest son of the Countess of Salisbury but there are no suggestions that he died from other than natural causes.
2) The second (1531-70), son of Sir Geoffrey of Lordington and nephew of the above, was involved in plots, possibly encompassing Mary Stuart, early in Elizabeth I’s reign but was merely imprisoned in the Tower, where he died. His brother Edmund also died in the Tower that year.
3) The third (c.1575-75), Sir Geoffrey’s great-grandson was assassinated at the Orsini Palace in early 1605, as was his brother Geoffrey in 1619. These may have been the result of coincidental robberies but we cannot quite exclude security service involvement, with the “Gunpowder Plot” being planned at the time of Arthur’s death.

The four Geoffrey Poles








The delayed burial of Arthur Pole?

As many of you are aware, Bisham Abbey has been a sports centre of sorts for many years now but the Priory was the burial place of the Earls of Salisbury (and later also of Warwick). There is a mystery on it’s website:

(Sir) Arthur Pole was another of Richard III’s great-nephews and managed to die of natural causes before his family became embroiled in an apparent plot that saw his brother, mother and cousin executed and his nephew disappear without trace. It is clear that he was alive in 1527, is thought to have died in 1535 and been buried in 1539. Four years between death and burial is an excessive delay in any case but there are possible explanations: he died later, was buried earlier or that the remains are those of his eldest brother Henry, Lord Montagu – who was beheaded on 9 January 1539.

Two of these cannot explain why a Pole brother was buried in a Priory about a year after it was demolished. It would seem logical to conclude that he was buried earlier.

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