Reginald Pole: Prince and Prophet

by Thomas F. Mayer

This is the first biography in ninety years of Reginald Pole (1500SH1558), one of the most important international figures of the sixteenth century. Pole's career is followed as protégé and then harshest critic of Henry VIII, as cardinal and papal diplomat, legate of Viterbo, a nearly successful candidate for pope, and finally as legate to England, archbishop of Canterbury, architect of the English Counter-Reformation, and victim of both Pope Paul IV and of himself.

Genres: History

488 pages, Hardcover

First published November 23, 2000

Reviews

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 2 out of 5]

Illa skriven, men intressant i det att Pole är ett ovanligt subjekt.

[Wouter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cardinal Reginald Pole (1500-1558), scion of the Plantagenet family and cousin to Henry VIII, was one of the most important figures in the sixteenth century, yet today few would recognize his name or know why he had been such a prominent man. Thomas F. Mayer tries to save him from oblivion with this first full-length biography in the English language in almost a century. He discusses both Pole's life and his posthumous reputation, and offers a glimpse behind the masks Pole himself had carefully fashioned during his life through his writings and those of his biographers in the centuries thereafter. The book's title is a play on these different personae: prince, as a potential successor (and thus menace) to Henry VIII (since the latter had long had difficulty producing male offspring); and prophet, as an influential reformer in the Roman Catholic Church who narrowly missed ascending its highest office, the papacy. Both aspects of Pole's life are elaborately discussed by Mayer, but like its subject, this book never quite reaches its potential, even if there is much to admire here.

What prevents this book from being a successful biography is an author who too often loses himself in the minutiae of Pole's life and writings without adequately introducing the topic at hand. The book lacks a clear structure and offers no reader guidance. For example, if Mayer discusses one of Pole's texts, he will first relate its contents and sources in detail, and only after - if we are lucky - he will provide some much-needed context as to what it generally was about, why Pole had written it and why it was significant. Also, the author doesn't always discuss events chronologically, which can be confounding for the reader since Mayer more often than not doesn't include the year of events when he relates them. Most frustrating are the author's referrals to his own publications elsewhere, about events he refuses to summerize here despite their significance, because he had already discussed them (what else would be the point of a full-length biography, you may wonder). In short, these objections come down to one point: the author doesn't know how to present his findings. What this book really needed was a good editor to bring to the fore the many important pieces of information this biography evidently contains. And it left me with the feeling that, above everything else, it's a missed opportunity to tell Pole's life story accessibly.

Recommended to specialist readers, but with caution.