POLE (FAMILY). The family of the Poles, earls and dukes of Suffolk, which, but for Richard M.'s defeat at Bosworth, might have given the next king to England, had its origin in a house of merchants at Kingston-upon-Hull. The Poles were among the first English peers whose fortunes had been founded upon riches gained in trade. William atte Pole (d. c. 1329), a merchant of Ravens rode, settled in Hull. His sons, Sir Richard and Sir William atte Pole, were both famous for their wealth. Sir Richard (d. 1345), the king's butler in 1327, removed to London, and is styled a London citizen in his will. The male line of this, the elder branch of the Poles, failed with a grandson, John Pole, whose daughter was Joan, Lady of Cobham, the Kentish heiress, whose fourth hus band was Sir John Oldcastle the Lollard.
Sir William atte Pole (d. 1366), the second son of William, joined his brother in advancing large sums to the government while keeping safely apart from politics. The first mayor of Hull, he sat for Hull in five parliaments, and was advanced to be knight banneret and a baron of the exchequer. He was counted "second to no merchant in England," but after his time his descendants left the counting-house, his four sons all serving in the Freprh wars. The eldest son, MICHAEL POLE, ist earl of Suffolk, who had fought under the Black Prince and John of Gaunt, became (1383) chancellor of England. In 1385 he was created earl of Suffolk, a grant from the CroWn giving him the castle and honour of Eye with other East Anglian lands formerly held by the Ufford earls. In 1386 the opposition, led by Glouces ter, the king's uncle, pulled him down. He was dismissed from his chancellorship, impeached, and convicted. Richard was forced to send his minister into ward at Windsor until the parliament was dissolved, when Suffolk once more appeared as the leader of the king's party. But the opposition was insistent, and Suffolk fled over sea to Calais. He died an exile in Paris in 1389.
The exile's son Michael, 2nd earl, was restored in 1397, died of dysentery at Harfleur, and his son Michael was killed at Agin court. Michael was succeeded as 4th earl by his brother William. (See SUFFOLK, WILLIt-al DE LA POLE, DUKE OF.) John Pole (1442-1491), the only son of the 4th earl, should have succeeded to the dukedom, his father having died un attainted. But the honours were apparently regarded as for feited, and the dukedom was formally restored to the boy in the earldom of Pembroke being allowed to lapse. He married
King Edward IV.'s sister Elizabeth. The marriage confirmed him a partisan of the White Rose. Before he was of age he was steward of England at his brother-in-law's crowning, and at Queen Elizabeth's crowning he bore her sceptre. Having held many offices under Edward IV. he was ready to bear a sceptre at Richard's coronation, and, after Bosworth, to swear fealty to the Tudor dynasty and to bear another sceptre for another Queen Elizabeth. He died in 1491, having safely kept his lands, his duke dom, and his head through perilous years.. (See SUFFOLK, EARLS AND DUKES OF and POLE, RICHARD DE LA.) Another family of the name of Pole, having no kinship with the house of Suffolk, owed their advancement and their fall to a match with a princess of the royal house. Sir Richard Pole, a Buckinghamshire knight, was the son of Geoffrey Pole, a squire whose wife, Edith St. John, was sister of the half-blood to the mother of Henry VII. About 1490 or 1491 he married the Lady Margaret, daughter of George, duke of Clarence. He died in 1505, and in 1513 King Henry VIII. created the widow countess of Salisbury, as some amends for the judicial murder of her brother, the Earl of Warwick. Four years later, the barony of Montague was revived for her eldest son Henry. Until the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn, the countess of Salisbury was gov erness of her godchild, the Lady Mary. When her son, the famous Cardinal Pole, published his Pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione the whole family fell under the displeasure of the king, who resolved to make an end of them. The Lord Montague was the first victim, beheaded in 1539 on a charge of treasonable conversations, on evidence of his brother, Sir Geoffrey Pole. In 1541 the aged countess, attainted with her son Montague, was also executed. Sir Geoffrey Pole fled the country, and joined the cardinal in exile. He returned with him at Mary's accession, both dying in 1558. His sons Arthur and Edmund, taken in 1562 as plotters against Queen Elizabeth, were committed to the Tower of London, where they died after eight years of imprisonment.