Sir George PLANTAGENET, K.G.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: 28 Jun 1461, Duke of Clarence
• Fact: 25 Mar 1471/2, Earl of Warwick and Salisbury
• Fact 2: 20 May 1472, Great Chamberlain of England

Notes:

Name:
George Plantagenet, K.G., sixth but third surviving son, was born at Dublin Castle on 21 Oct. 1449. He was created Duke of Clarence by his brother King Edward IV on 28 Jun 1461. He was first summoned to Parliament on 28 Feb 1466/7.
He joined his father-in-law in the rebellion against the King (his brother) in favour of the deposed King, Henry VI, but, changing sides, assisted in King Edward's victory at Barnet on 14 Apr 1471. In this battle his wife's father was slain whereupon he, 'in consideration of that his marriage', was created Earl of Warwick and Earl of Salisbury on 25 mar 1471/2, and on 20 May 1472 made Great Chamberlain of England. Isabel Neville died at Warwick Castle on 22 Dec 1476, and was buried at Tewkesbury. He proposed a second marriage with Mary, daughter of the Duke of Burgundy, a match which was much opposed by the Queen Consort. He was accused of high treason against his brother King Edward IV, found guilty, and attainted on 8 Feb 1477/8, whereby all his honours were forfeited. He was executed in the Tower aged twenty-eight in 18 Feb 1478, said to have been drowned in a butt of malmsey wine, and was buried in Tewkesbury Abby.

George married Isabel NEVILLE on 11 Jul 1469 in Calais, church of Notre Dame. Isabel (daughter of Richard NEVILLE and Anne DE BEAUCHAMP) was born on 05 Sep 1451 in Warwick Castle, England; died on 12 Dec 1476 in Warwick Castle; was buried in Tewkesbury Abbey. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Countess of Salisbury

Notes:

Excerpt from Blood Royal: Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, was the devoted governess of the young Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII, King of England, and was considered by the Princess as a second mother. Margaret was mother of Reginald Pole, Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury, who refused to support Henry VIII in his break with Rome. Henry VIII has her imprisoned in the Tower where she would remain about two years, suffering "by the severity of the weather and the insufficiency of her clothing." Early on the morning of 27 May 1541, she was beheaded, despite the fact she was nearing the age of seventy. "The executioner was a clumsy novice, who hideously hacked her neck and shoulders before the decapitation was accomplished." When Pole heard of his mother's execution ("without trial or formal charge"), he is reported to have said, "I am now the son of a martyr." It is believed that Henry VIII, despite the fact that he had once called her the most saintly woman in England, was executing Margaret because he could not get at the son.

There are varying accounts of her execution. Some sources describe the Countess as refusing to place her head on the block. Stating that she had done nothing traitorous, she fled from the executioner, who chased her around the courtyard, hacking her with the axe.

From "The Worthies of England, 1952, pg 612": On the scaffold, as she stood, she would not gratify the executioner with a prostrate posture of her body." Since the countess refused to put her head on the block, "Here happened an unequal contest betwixt weakness and strength, age and youth, nakedness and weapons, nobility and baseness, a princess and an executioner, who at last dragging her by the hair, grey with age, may truly be said to have took off her head, seeing she would neither give it to him, nor forgive him the doing thereof>' However, the "Dictionary of National Biography" reports that the Countess died with dignity, requesting prayers for those near to her and for the king and queen and his children. She then submitted to the clumsy executioner, an "inexperienced youth," "who hacked her neck and shoulders before the decapitation was accomplished."

Name:
On the death of her brother Richard Plantagenent , Earl of Warwick, on 28 Nov 1499, she became sole heiress, not only to her father, but to the Earls of Warwick and Earls of Salisbury. She was Lady of the Chamber to Queen Katherine of Aragon in 1509. Sir Richard de le Pole died before 18 Dec 1505. In 1538 King Henry VIII struck at the family of Pole, on account both of their descent from King Edward IV's brother George, Duke of Clarence, and of the action of Cardinal Reginald Pole, who hoped that Paul III would publish a Bull of deprivation. Their youngest son, Sir Geoffrey Pole, was sent to the Tower on 29 Aug 1538, followed on 4 November, by their first son Henry, Lord Montagu. Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury, was sent to the Tower of London, attainted, and beheaded at the Tower on 28 May 1541. She was the last surviving member of the royal House of Anjou (usually known as the Plantagenets).

Margaret married Sir Richard DE LA POLE, K.G. in Nov 1487. Richard (son of Geoffrey DE LA POLE and Edith ST. JOHN) died before 15 Nov 1505. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Earl of Warwick and Salisbury

Notes:

Excerpt from Blood Royal: Edward had a pitiable life. His mother died after giving birth to a little brother, who died soon afterwards. He was barely three when his father was executed for treason. His remaining family was basically his sister Margaret and his aunt, Anne, Duchess of Gloucester, afterwards Queen of England. When he was eight, he was knighted by Richard III along with the king's son. He may have been considered as heir by Richard after his own son died. However, for whatever rason, Richard later ordered Edward confined to Sheriff Hutton Castle and then nominated John De La Pole ( d. 1487), Earl of Lincoln, his sister's son, as his heir. After Richard's III defeat at Bosworth (22 Aug 1485), Henry VII sent Robert Willoughby to Sheriff Hutton Castle to bring Edward to London and imprison him in the Tower "for no other crime than being the son of (George, Duke of) Clarence," and nephew of two kings. Two years later, amid rumors of Edward's death, Lambert Simmel, impersonating Edward, was, with Yorkist support, crowned in Ireland in 1487 as Edward VI, King of England. Henry VII had no choice but to prove the falseness of the impersonation and so had the ral Edward taken from the Tower and paraded to St. Paul's for mass. He was then returned to the Tower where he spent the next twelve years, until another captured importor, Perkin Warbeck (who had impersonated Richard, Duke of York, the second of the two princes who disappearaed from the Tower), drew the unsuspecting Edward into an excape plan which failed. Warbeck was executed 23 Nov 1499. Edward was tried for conspiring to depose the king ("a clearly trumped-up charge"), pleaded quilty ("in mere simplicity from his total ignorance of the world"), and was beheaded ("judicially murdered") 28 November 1499.