Margaret Pole: The Countess in the Tower

by Susan Higginbotham

Of the many executions ordered by Henry VIII, surely the most horrifying was that of sixty-seven-year-old Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, hacked to pieces on the scaffold by a blundering headsman.From the start, Margaret’s life had been marred by tragedy and violence: her father, George, Duke of Clarence, had been executed at the order of his own brother, Edward IV, and her naive young brother, Edward, Earl of Warwick, had spent most of his life in the Tower before being executed on the orders of Henry VII.Yet Margaret, friend to Katherine of Aragon and the beloved governess of her daughter Mary, had seemed destined for a happier fate until religious upheaval and rebellion caused Margaret and her family to fall from grace. From Margaret’s birth as the daughter of a royal duke to her beatification centuries after her death, Margaret Pole: The Countess in the Tower tells the story of one of the fortress’s most unlikely prisoners.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Tudor Period, Plantagenet, British Literature

240 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2016

About the author

Welcome! I write historical fiction and nonfiction set in medieval and Tudor England and, most recently, nineteenth-century America.

As a writer of biographical fiction, one of my main goals is to avoid the stereotypes, myths, and misconceptions that have gathered around historical figures over the centuries. At the same time, I strive to remain true to known historical facts and to the mores of the times in which my characters lived. I use both primary sources and modern historical research to bring my characters to life.

Reviews

[Tony Riches · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should begin by saying I'm an avid reader of Susan Higginbotham's historical fiction, so I've been looking forward to reading her non-fiction biography of Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, one of the last surviving members of the House of York.

Perhaps unfairly, Margaret Pole is best remembered for her botched execution and a rather unflattering portrait of a thin-faced woman holding a sprig of honeysuckle blossom (a sign of love and faithfulness.) Interestingly, when I saw the portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, it had been classified as 'Unknown woman, formerly known as Margaret Pole'.

This new book should go some way to restoring Margaret Pole's place in Tudor History, as Susan has done an excellent job of setting out the facts of her complex life and explaining the historical context. Readable and informative, this book falls short of answering my question about why Margaret was executed at the age of sixty-seven - but I suppose we will never know.

[Charity · Rating 3 out of 5]

Henry VII and I have something in common: cheapskates (unless it's something we really want! ... but even then, I suspect he also complained at shelling out $$, even if you ARE paying hundreds of thousands of pounds to get a traitor in your Tower).

So, when this book turned up on Kindle with what I consider to be a BIG price tag (nearly $20, for an electronic book?!), I flinched -- and bought it anyway, since the Hardback has been stalled indefinitely and I need it for research.

I reserve the right to change my opinions later, with a more careful perusal of the book (I am rushing through it, due to time constraints on my end for another project) but as it stands, this seems to be a fairly thorough and informative read about Margaret Pole. I learned a few things I was unaware of in other resources, but also wondered why a few things are missing (for example: various sources claim Margaret Pole and Henry VIII had a "land dispute" without further detail in 1518; there is no mention of it here, unless it comes in the context of her later demands for the extended Warwick estate).

Margaret Pole was no fool. She was careful. Few people knew her true opinions, so what we do know of her (including her intense loyalty to Katharine of Aragon) comes from a few specific, isolated incidents, such as when she blatantly refused to turn over Princess Mary's jewels and plate when the king demanded them of her. This means historians have little insight into her personality, true opinions, or motivations, which makes writing a biography about her difficult. All you have to work with are documentation from other people in the period, dry reports of what she bought / her house accounts, a few letters, hearsay from the Spanish ambassador Chapuys (an unreliable narrator), and myths -- so, a lot of it becomes guesswork. We don't even know what her husband died of, or when it was, exactly. This author does fall into the biographical trap of insinuation from time to time ("Though we have no record of what Margaret actually thought, we can probably IMAGINE her reaction..."), which doesn't bother me, but...

Given there isn't much to go on about the subject, a lot of the book includes "filler" -- extensive details and background on the people around her, and the incidents that made up the circumstances surrounding her life. There's a lot about Henry VIII, Mary Tudor, Katharine of Aragon, and so on. If the reader has zero knowledge of any of it, in order to fully understand the court itself, the book needs this -- but if the reader is already familiar with all of this from other sources (Henry divorced his first wife to marry Anne, who was unpopular and fell from power), it becomes redundant. This means you're mostly paying for "History of the Tudor Period... with as much as anyone knows about the Pole Family."

Since I'm reading it for research purposes and not for fun, I skimmed a lot of the chapters where I knew most of the background information already, but it does have a straightforward, informative style that doesn't get bogged down too often in "boring" essentials.

[Deborah Pickstone · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had previously enjoyed Susan Higginbotham's novels and had high hopes of this biography of Margaret Pole, an unusual subject. Unfortunately, my hopes were disappointed. To be fair to the author, I was put off early by her clear anti-Richard III bias (what is it about female historians and Richard III - it seems to bring out the reactionary in them) whereas I am a Riccardian of many years standing. I base this assertion on her choice of the word 'claimed' regarding many of Richard's actions along with the absence of opposing facts from the text. For instance, Richard 'claimed' that he had evidence of his nephews' bastardy. He ignored Edward of Warwick's claim to the throne when it wasn't specified in the Act of Attainder against his father but she doesn't mention that no-one at the time would have considered that overturning one minor's claim to the throne in favour of another minor's claim - which was smudged with that attainder to boot - as a good idea. Thus it reads as if it were all Richard's idea and implies (to be fair, she doesn't state) that the throne was usurped. She tells several times how the Princes in the Tower disappeared from view under Richard but fails to mention there is no evidence to suggest he killed them. She writes of Richard coming south to take up the role of Lord Protector, as willed by Edward IV, as if he grabbed the Regency illegally from the actual usurpers of it, the Woodvilles. This is history by smoke and mirrors; written to make things appear to be rather than an account of what happened.

Eventually we get back to Margaret and for the most part read 'little is known' or 'nothing is known' but then she makes some odd assertion that seems hardly pertinent: my favourite of these is when Ms Higginbotham tells us about Margaret having prepared a memorial resting place for herself where she wasn't allowed to lie after being executed - "In this she is similar to Percy Bysshe Shelley, who likewise has a monument at Christchurch without having been buried there." What????!!! This is a pointless and irrelevant comment and the two aren't even comparable as Shelley did not commission his own monument. It does, however, epitomise this history as far as I am concerned.

So, I am most disappointed. Perhaps Ms Higginbotham should stick to writing HF, which is usually readable.

[G. Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, certainly, but I would have appreciated more on Margaret and her family. Frequently this felt like a retelling of general Tudor history rather than a concentration on the Poles, and Margaret herself.
I also found the wording surprisingly difficult to understand at times, the subject of a sentence not entirely clear, and despite the fact I'm very familiar with this period and the people, I found the frequent run-downs of family links confusing, (which could have been solved with a family tree at the beginning for reference).
Having said that, however, this is an interesting way to approach the period, through the eyes of Margaret Pole.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, if you're a fan of the Tudor dynasty and if you're not already familiar with the Tudor period leading to the rise of King Henry VIII and his wives and more importantly King Henry VIII's desperation for a male heir to secure the throne.

Lady Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, one of the few surviving members of House Plantagenet, even her younger brother Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick was executed purely for being the last legitimate male heir to House of York and a threat to King Henry VII's reign.

All these centuries, this woman who has been an enigma, whose personality, true opinions or motivations remain lost to history, who witnessed multiple family members death, who walked a tight rope as her being in the king's favour varied over the years leading to her eventual demise as an elderly woman.

We'll never know her true thoughts and opinions, as from what I can gather that she kept her cards closely to her chest, purely out of self-preservation and she had children to worry about, I personally believe if her husband didn't die as early as he did, or if Prince Arthur didn't die, Lady Margaret Pole would've had a much happier life than she did.

[Susan Abernethy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Link to my review of this book:

https://flhwnotesandreviews.com/2017/...

[Gina Minard-Rivera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Susan Higginbotham, a wonderful historical fiction writer, shines just as bright in the historical genre. She obviously does plenty of research, sites many sources, and yet brings history to life in such a way as to make it education AND entertaining. At no time does she seem to be pushing forward her own opinions, but leaves room for many perspectives while highlighting the most reasonable assessments. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it strongly!

[Melisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I did learn some new tidbits of information about the lives of Margaret and her children, I was disappointed in the retelling of the whole Henry the VIII, Katherine of Aragon, and Anne Boleyn affair. I know that it is a backdrop for Margaret's life events, but having read it in so many other books a quick mention would have been sufficient. It felt like the book focused on others more than Margaret and her family.

[Ken Sampson · Rating 3 out of 5]

[23 Jan 2021] This small book is the biography of a relatively unknown member of the Tudor court. A cousin of Henry VIII and Governess of Princess Mary (later Queen Mary). Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury. It is reasonably well written, packed with research and is informative and easy to read text. However, for me personally, despite giving it my best shot - it fell slightly flat. It never really brought her alive in the minds eye or engendered more than a one dimensional character. I understand that sources are limited and hard to access, but the circumstantial evidence abounds for the Tudor court and life in Tudor England. There was such limited contextual background, that it sailed a 'what she did next' path. too much. The author (An American) did well to iron-out Americanisms, but there were still a few places where the jarring language just slightly indicates the author's other-ness.

Then there was the lack of a Family Tree which meant that you had to continue to figure-out where she fitted in and place her within her relationships. The Appendix was a long, detailed and convoluted original text of evidence regard a conspiracy and was in places, I'm sorry to say, completely inaccessible. There was a sense of inclusion simply because the author had spent hours transcribing it. There was one portrait of her with an attribution of 'thought to be her' left hanging in the air. Why is it thought to be her? Who by? Here we might be looking at the very face of the women we are reading about and nothing is made of it. It is a striking Tudor portrait that would, let's be honest, have made a much better book cover.

The emotional component of the story is only lightly touched on - the fact that Henry VIII was a Tudor psychopath and she was brutally murdered for spurious reasons is described rather neutrally and without judgment. It is a competently written biography and yes - it gives you all you need to know, but does it bring Margaret alive in the readers mind? No - not in my opinion.

[George Foord · Rating 1 out of 5]

This hardly any information about Margaret herself so had to give up.

[Soph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Waste of time

[Yunalesca Harley Romanov Renaldi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved this book but was disappointed that it only went up to 60% on my kindle would have loved it to be longer but it is a great read I finished this in two days that's how good it was I know it says different on good reads but I'm one of them that reads one book and straight to another I would recommend this it's just ashame it was so short I'd have loved to have given 5 Stars but I'm always honest on reviews