Powys-Lybbe Forbears - Person Sheet
Powys-Lybbe Forbears - Person Sheet
Notes for Henry Poole Lord Montagu
Had an Act of Attainder passed against him, later reversed by Queen Mary.  (Might this reversal have been promoted by his brother Cardinal Poole, who returned to England in Mary's reign?  At least it would have made his nieces no longer to be bastards!)

Executed 1538.

From GEC's Complete Peerage (VG):

The King resolved to destroy the Poles root and branch, and Latimer applauded their destruction in a letter to Cromwell of 13 Dec 1538: "It is long since this King informed me that he meant to exterminate this house of Montague which is of the White Rose."   The French Ambassador, Castillon, wrote on learning of their arrest: "I think few Lords in this country are safe."  Though the king murdered Lord Montagu and his mother, the Countess of Salisbury, the most dreaded and important of the Poles - viz Reynold [Reginald], the Cardinal - being on the Continent, escaped him, although he used his utmost efforts (to which the poet, Sir Thomas Wyatt [another ancestor], English Minister in Spain, lent himself) to have him assassinated.

Henry is on the list of English martyrs in the Praetermissi section, sub-section Martyrs on the Scaffold.
_________________

He was a baron in the king’s retinue at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520.
_________________
Arms Generally notes for Henry Poole Lord Montagu
(14) Per pale sable and or, a saltire engrailed counterchanged.
(15) Or, a lion rampant gules.
_____________________

His banner is recorded in the roll of c. 1530, “Banners, Standards and Badges from a Tudor Manuscript in the College of Arms”, edited by Howard de Walden with expert assistncce by Joseph Foster, p.179
On that page the banner is recorded as for:

   POOLE MONTAGUULL (Baron Montague)

While the page does not show his achievement of arms, only portraying the banner, the blazon is on the top right of that page:

Arms: Quarterly, of eight pieces:
1. France and England quarterly;
2. Per pale Or and Sable, a saltire engrailed counterchanged;
3. Gule, a saltire Argent, a label of three points Azure;
4. Gules, a fess between six cross crosslets OR;
5. Chequy Or and Azure, a chevron Ermine;
6. Argent, three fusils in fess Gules;
7. Or, an eagle displayed Vert’
8. Quarterly, I and IV. Or three chevrons Gules
    II and III. Quarterly, Argent and Gules, in the second a fret
    Or, over all a bendlet Sable
“This shield is scratched over and written above,’as a provid trato’ atented of jigh treyson’.”

The nine quarters are for:
1. Clarence, his maternal grandfather, George the duke of,
2. Poole, his personal arms,
3. Neville, his mother’s maternal grandfather, the Kingmaker,
4. Beauchamp, his mother’s maternal gt-grandfather, Richard, earl of Warwick,
5. Warwick earldom,
6. Montacute, his gt-gt-gt-grandfather, Thomas earl of Montacute,
7. Monthermer, his 6-gt-grandfather Thomas lord Monthermer,
8. I and IV: Clare, earls of Gloucester,
    II and III, Despenser, his gt-gt-gt-grandfather, Thomas earl of Gloucester.
______________

TFPL, Aug 2012: His second personal coat, in the 1927 achievement of arms for my grandfather, has long perplexed me.  But I now wonder if it was indeed a Poole quartering and not anything inherited from his mother.  In the “Dictionary of medieval arms, British Ordinary, vol 1, p. 136 there are many bearers of ‘Or, a lion rampant gules’ including:
  POLE, Griffith ap Owen de la, Ld of Powis.
In Plaisted’s History of Medmenham there is an unattributed pedigree which includes one or two names that might include this Griffith; see my Notes for Henry’s paternal grandfather, Geoffrey Poole.
Accordingly it might well be that Henry Poole considered Griffith to be his ancestor and quartered his arms.

In Moor’s  "Knights of Edward I", vol IV, p. 92 there is a paragraph:
“Pole, Ly Sire de la, kt. Grand Seignor. De or un lion de goul (Parl).  These arms, being undifferenced, would seem to be those of the head of the family, but Owen de la P. died in 1293, and it is doubtful to them they refer. For a full account of the Princes of Upper Powys see 'Coll. of Powysland Club, i, 2-3'"

Owen was the father of Griffin, so these are even more likely to be a genuine quartering of the Pooles.
_______________
Armorial Blazon notes for Henry Poole Lord Montagu
(14) Per pale sable and or, a saltire engrailed counterchanged.
(15) Or, a lion rampant gules.
Blazon source notes for Henry Poole Lord Montagu
Essex 1612 visitation, p. 146 and the achievement of 1927 for RCLPL by C of A.
DNB Main notes for Henry Poole Lord Montagu
Pole, Sir Henry, Baron Montague or Montacute 1492?-1539

Name: Pole, Sir Henry
Title: Baron Montague or Montacute
Dates: 1492?-1539
Active Date: 1532
Gender: Male

Place of
    Death
: Tower Hill
Spouse: Jane, daughter of George Neville, lord Bergavenny
Likenesses: 1...
Sources: Sandford's Genealogical Hist., Dugdale's Baronage and the Calendar...
Contributor: J. G. [James Gairdner]

Article
Pole, Sir Henry, Baron Montague or Montacute 1492?-1539, born about 1492, was eldest son of Sir Richard Pole (d. 1505), by his wife Margaret [see Pole, Margaret]. 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 (Dugdale, 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, dined with the Princess Mary, and he himself dined with her again on the 24th (Cal. Henry VIII, vol. vi. No. 1540, iii.). He received a writ of summons to the prorogued parliament in January 1534, and he seems to have attended regularly, his presence being recorded on 30 March, the seventy-fifth day of parliament. In April 1535 he was on the special commission before whom the Carthusian martyrs were tried; but his position there, like that of other lords, was merely honorary, the practical work being left to the judicial members. He was similarly placed on the trial of Sir Thomas More on 1 July. Immediately afterwards he had a serious illness. In May 1536 he was one of the peers before whom Anne Boleyn was tried. In it he took a more practical part than in the two previous trials, for each of the peers present severally declared her guilty. He may have believed in the verdict, for he had never approved of the king's marriage to her, or loved the antipapal policy to which that marriage had led (cf. ib. vol. xvii. No. 957, x. 243; vol. vii. No. 1040).
He sat in the parliament of July 1536 (ib. vol. x. No. 994, vol. xi. No. 104). He and his mother were seriously distressed that year about the book which his brother Reginald sent to the king, and each wrote to him in reproachful terms, but it was apparently to satisfy the council by whom the letters were read and despatched [see Pole, Margaret]. On the outbreak of the Lincolnshire rebellion in the beginning of October 1536, Montague received orders to be ready at a day's warning to serve against the insurgents with two hundred men. But the musters were countermanded on the speedy suppression of the insurrection, and it is doubtful whether he was sent against the Yorkshire rebels afterwards. On 15 Oct. 1537 he took part in the ceremonial at the christening of Prince Edward. On 12 Nov. following he and Lord Clifford attended the Princess Mary, as she rode from Hampton Court to Windsor, as chief mourner at the funeral of Jane Seymour.
All this time, although perfectly loyal, he was deeply grieved at the overthrow of the monasteries and the abrogation of the pope's authority. He often said in private he wished he was over sea with the bishop of Liege, as his brother had been, and that knaves ruled about the king. Early in 1538 his wife died, and his interest in public affairs consequently decreased (Cal. vol. xiii. pt. ii. No. 695 [2]). But Henry VIII was not ignorant of his opinions, and obtained positive evidence of them by the examination of his brother, Sir Geoffrey Pole [q.v.], in the Tower in October and November 1538. Montague was accordingly committed to the Tower on 4 Nov. along with the Marquis of Exeter. They had at times communicated on public affairs. The indictments in each case were to the same effect. They had both expressed approval of Cardinal Pole's proceedings, and Montague had said he expected civil war one day from the course things were taking, especially if the king were to die suddenly. The two lords were tried before Lord-chancellor Audeley, as lord high steward, and a jury of peers, and both were found guilty. Montague received judgment on 2 Dec., and Exeter on the day following. On 9 Dec. both lords were beheaded on Tower Hill. A portrait of Montague by an unknown hand belonged in 1866 to Mr. Reginald Cholmondeley.
Montague left a son whose existence is not mentioned by peerage historians; he was included with his father in the bill of attainder of 1539, and probably died not many years after in prison. Besides Catherine, wife of Francis, lord Hastings, afterwards earl of Huntingdon [q.v.], Montague had a daughter Winifred, who married a brother of her sister's husband. His two daughters became his heirs, and were fully restored in blood and honours in the first year of Philip and Mary.

Sources
Sandford's Genealogical Hist., Dugdale's Baronage and the Calendar of Henry VIII, are the main sources of information. The Chronicle of Henry VIII, translated from the Spanish by M. A. S. Hume (1889), has some details of doubtful authenticity touching Montague's arrest and examination.

Contributor: J. G.

published  1896
Notes for Henry & Jane (Family)
From The National Archive’s site:

    Reference: E 41/206
    Description: Indenture between Margaret countess of Salisbury and Henry Pole knight, lord Montague, her son and heir of the one part, and George Nevile knight, lord Abergavenny (Bergevenny) of the other part: Agreement to a marriage between Henry Pole aforesaid and Jane Nevile, one of the daughters and heirs of lord Abergavenny, and settlement therefor.
    Note: (not sealed)
    Date: 8 July 7 Hen VIII (i.e. 8 July 1515)
    Held by: The National Archives, Kew
    Legal status: Public Record
_________________
Last Modified 23 Mar 2016Created 14 May 2022 by Tim Powys-Lybbe
Re-created by Tim Powys-Lybbe on 14 May 20220