Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 46.djvu/31

 that he found his way to Rome, and threw himself at the feet of his brother the cardinal, saying he was unworthy to be called his brother for having caused another brother's death. The cardinal brought him to the pope for absolution, and afterwards sent him into Flanders to the bishop of Liège, allowing him forty crowns a month to live upon. There he chiefly lived till the close of Edward VI's reign. His wife and family, however, were still at Lordington, and he had a strong desire to return to England. In 1550 he visited Sir John Mason [q. v.] at Poissy, while on a journey to Rouen. He explained that he was riding up and down that summer to see countries, and vainly begged Mason to procure leave for him to return to England. He was excepted from the general pardon granted at the end of the parliament in 1552 (, Eccl. Mem. vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 67). After Queen Mary's accession he returned to England. He died in 1558, a few days before his brother the cardinal, and was buried at Stoughton Church. He was attended in his last illness by Father Peter de Soto [q. v.] His widow Constance, who made her will on 12 Aug. 1570, desired to be buried beside him. He left five sons and six daughters, two of whom were married, and one a nun of Sion; the eldest son, Arthur, is separately noticed.

[Sandford's Genealogical Hist.; Cal. State Papers, Henry VIII, Foreign, Edward VI, Venetian, iii. 1560; Privy Council Proceedings, ed. Nicolas, vol. vii.; Sussex Archæological Collections, vol. xxi.; Tytler's England under Edward VI and Mary, i. 313; Chronicle of Henry VIII of England, translated from the Spanish by Martin A. Sharp Hume. The notices of Sir Geoffrey Pole in Froude's History are altogether erroneous.] 

POLE, HENRY,  or  (1492?–1539), born about 1492, was eldest son of Sir Richard Pole (d. 1505), by his wife Margaret [see ]. He obtained a special livery of his father's lands, viz. the manors of Ellesborough and Medmenham in Buckinghamshire, on 5 July 1513. On 25 Sept. following he was one of a company of forty-nine gentlemen knighted by Henry VIII under his banner, after mass, in the church at Tournay. This implies that he had distinguished himself during the French campaign. Along with his mother, who was created Countess of Salisbury that year, he gave a bond to the king for the redemption of the lands of that ancestral earldom (Cal. Henry VIII, ii. 1486), and another old family title, the barony of Montague or Montacute, forfeited by the Nevilles under Edward IV, was conferred upon himself. There is no record of any formal grant or creation, but from 1517, when he is named as a witness of Henry VIII's ratification of the treaty of London, he is continually called Lord Montague, though he was not admitted to the House of Lords till 1529. In September 1518 he was one of the English lords appointed to receive the great French embassy. He was a member of the royal household, and had a livery allowed him (Cal. Henry VIII, vol. iii. No. 491). He attended the king in 1520 to the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and also to the meeting with Charles V at Gravelines.

About 1513 he married Jane, daughter of George Neville, lord Bergavenny [q. v.] His father-in-law insisted upon a jointure to the yearly value of 200l., in addition to which he was to pay ‘at convenient days’ a sum of one thousand marks if he should have no male issue; but if a son were born, Lord Bergavenny was to pay the same amount to the Countess of Salisbury (ib. vol. xiii. pt. ii. No. 1016). Lord Bergavenny was himself the son-in-law of the unfortunate Duke of Buckingham who once, as appears by his private accounts, lost 15l. at dice to him at the house of Lord Montague (ib. iii. 499). When Buckingham was arrested in April 1521, Lords Bergavenny and Montague were arrested also (ib. vol. iii. No. 1268), but were soon after released.

In 1522, on Charles V's visit to England, Montague was one of those appointed to meet him on his way from Dover to Canterbury. In 1523 he took part in Suffolk's invasion of France (ib. vol. iii. No. 3281, vol. iv. p. 85). His fortunes at this time must have been depressed, for his income was under 50l. a year, and he was exempted from paying subsidy in 1525 (ib. iv. 1331). Apparently he had parted with his paternal estates in Buckinghamshire, as his name does not appear in the commissions for that county, although it is on those for Hampshire, Sussex, Wiltshire, Somerset, and Dorset. On 1 Dec. 1529 he took his seat in the House of Lords (, Summons to Parliament, p. 500). Next year he signed the address of the peers to Clement VII, urging him to comply with the king's suit for a divorce. His action did not express his real mind.

In October 1532 he went with the king to Calais, to the meeting with Francis I. Next year he was queen's carver at the coronation banquet of Anne Boleyn, on 1 June. That he was made a knight of the Bath at this time seems to be an error due to Stow, who misread the name Monteagle in Hall's ‘Chronicle’ as Montague. On Thursday following (5 June) he and his son-in-law, Lord Hastings, and his brother, Sir Geoffrey Pole,