POLE
202
POLE
Sheen, where he spent five years. He went to Oxford
at the age of twelve or thirteen, and took his degree
soon after he was fifteen. He was, it seems, intended
for the Church, a choice to which he willingly as-
sented, and though he had received no orders and
was still hardly more than a lad, benefices were
showered upon him, amongst others a prebend bear-
ing with it the title of dean in the collegiate church of
Wimborne (15 Feb., 1518).
Throughout all his career Pole's attraction for a studious life was most pronounced. At his own wish and with the approval and pecuniary help of Henry VIII he set out in Feb., 1521, for Padua, at that time a great centre of learning, and in the coterie of scholars which he found there the young kinsman of the King of England became a great favourite. Men like Long- olius (de Longueil), who, dying shortly afterwards, left Pole his library, Leonicus, who taught him Greek, Bembo the humanist, and later Cardinal Contarini, also one day destined to adorn the Sacred College, and the English scholar Lupset, all sought his inti- macy, while at a later period and under other circum- stances he acquired the friendship and won the high esteem of Erasmus and More. All these were not only learned but large-minded men, and the mere fact of his choosing such associates would suffice to prove that Pole was not the bigot he has been some- times represented. Pole remained in Italy until 1527. After a visit to Rome in 1526, and on his return he still pursued his studies, residing within the enclosure of the Carthusians at Sheen. Even at this date he had not yet received minor orders, but he was nevertheless elected Dean of Exeter (12 Aug., 1527).
Shortly after this the great matter of the king's divorce came to a head, and Pole, to avoid ha\'ing to take sides in a complication in which conscience, friendship, and gratitude to his royal kinsman were inextricably entangled, obtained per- mission to continue his studies in Paris. But he did not thus escape from his embarrassment, for his aid was asked by the king to obtain from the university an opinion favourable to the divorce. When the young student pleaded inexperience. Fox was sent to assist him. The situation was a delicate one and Pole probably did little to forward a cause so distasteful to his own feeling (the effective pressure, as we know, was really applied by Francis I), but he had the credit of managing the business and was thanked for his exertions (see Calendar, IV, 6252, 6483, 6.505). None the less, Henry required his kins- man to return to England, and when shortly after- wards Wolsey's disgrace was followed by his death, Pole was invited to succeed him as Archbishop of York, or to accept the See of Winchester. That this was merely a bribe to obtain Pole's support was not so obvious then as it must seem to us now in the light of subsequent developments. He hesitated and asked for a month to make up his mind. Finally he ob- tained an interview with the king and seems to have expressed his feelings on the tlivorce question so boldly that Henry in his fury laid his hand upon his dagger. To explain his position he subsequently sub- mitted a memorial on the subject which, even accord- ing to the unfriendly testimony of Cranmer, was a masterly document (Strype, "Cranmer", Ap. 1), moderately and tactfully worded. "The king", so Pole pleaded — it was in the early part of 1531 — " standeth even upon the brink of the water and he may yet save all his honour, but if he put forth his foot but one step forward, all his honour is drowned."
The course of subsequent history fully justified Pole's prescience, and indeed for a moment the king seems to have wavered, but evil counsels urged him for- ward on the road to destruction. Still, as Pole had not made his opposition public, Henry was magnanimous enough at this stage to give him permission in January, 1532, to withdraw to the continent, while continuing
as before to pay his allowances out of the royal ex-
chequer. Resuming, eventually, his peaceful life in
Padua, Pole renewed or estabhshed an intimacy
with the leaders in the world of letters, men like
Sadolet (then Bishop of Carpentras), Contarini, and
Ludovico PriuU. The two or three years which fol-
lowed were probably the happiest he was fated ever
to know.
Meanwhile events were moving rapidly in England. The last strands which bound England to Rome had been severed by the king in 1534. The situation was desperate, but many seemed to think that it was in Pole's power to render aid. On the side of Princess Mary and her cousin Charles V advances were made to him in June, 1535, and after some demur he agreed to make an attempt at mediation. On the other hand Henry seemed still to cling to the idea of gaining him over to support the divorce, and through the intermediary of Pole's chaplain, Starkey, who happened to be in England at the close of 1534, Pole had been pressed by the king to write his opinion on the lawfulness Jure divino of marriage with a deceased brother's ^\-idow, and also upon the Divine institution of the papal supremacy. Pole reluctantly consented, and his reply after long delay eventually took the form of a treatise, "Pro ecclesiastics' Unitatis defensione". It was most uncompromising in language and argu- ment, and we cannot doubt that events in England, especially the tragedy of the execution of Fisher and More and of his friends the Carthusians, had con- vinced Pole that it was his duty before God to speak plainly, whatever the cost might be to himself and his family. The book, however, was not made public until a later date. It was at first sent off privately to the king (27 May, 1536), and Henry on glancing through it at once dispatched the messenger, who had brought it, back to Pole, demanding his attendance in England to explain certain difficulties in what he had written. Pole, however, while using courteous and respectful language to the king, and craving his mother's pardon in another letter for the action he felt bound to take, decided to disobey the summons. At this juncture he was called to Rome by command of Paul III. To accept the papal invitation was clearly and before the eyes of all men to side with the pope against the king, his benefactor. For a while Pole, who was by turns coaxed and threatened in let- ters from his mother and relatives in England, seems to have been in doubt as to where his duty lay. But his advisers, men like Ghiberti, Bishop of Verona, and Caraffa, the founder of the Theatines, afterwards Paul IV, urged that God must be obeyed rather than man. So the papal invitation was accepted, and by the middle of November, 1536, Pole, though still without orders of any kind, found liimself lodged in the Vatican.
The summons of Paul III had reference to the com- mission which he had convened under the presidency of Contarini to draw up a scheme for the internal re- form of the Church. The pope wished Pole to take part in this commission, and shortly afterwards announced his intention of making him a cardinal. To this proposal Pole, influenced in part by the thought of the sinister construction likely to be put upon his conduct in England, made an energetic and, undoubtedly, sincere resistance, but his objections were overborne and, after receiving the tonsure, he was raised to the purple along with Sadolet, Caraffa, and nine others on 22 Dec, 1536. The commission must have finished its sittings by the middle of Feb- ruary (Pastor, "Geschichte der Papste", V, 118), and Pole was despatched upon a mission to the north on 18 Feb., with the title of legate, as it was hoped that the rising known as the "Pilgrimage of Grace" might have created a favourable opportunity for interven- tion in England. But the rivalry between Charles V and Francis I robbed Pole's mission of any little
