Richard de la Pole (died February 24, 1525 in Pavia, Duchy of Milan) was a pretender to the English crown.

Family

Arms of Richard de la Pole

He was the fifth son of John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk and his wife Elizabeth of York. His mother was the second surviving daughter of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and Cecily Neville. She was also a younger sister to Edward IV of England and Edmund, Earl of Rutland as well as an older sister to Margaret of York, George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence and Richard III of England. His ancestor was Owen de la Pole who was the last claimant to the throne of Powys Wenwynwyn a 13th Century Welsh princely state.

His paternal grandparents were William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk and Alice Chaucer. Suffolk was an important English soldier and commander in the Hundred Years' War, and later Lord Chamberlain of England. He also appears prominently in William Shakespeare's Henry VI, part 1 and Henry VI, part 2.

Alice Chaucer was a daughter of Thomas Chaucer and Maud Burghersh. Thomas was the Speaker of the British House of Commons on three occasions, Chief Butler of England for almost thirty years, attended fifteen parliaments and was Speaker of the House five times, a feat not surpassed until the 18th century.

Thomas was a son of Geoffrey Chaucer and his wife Philippa (de) Roet. Geoffrey was an English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat (courtier), and diplomat. He is sometimes called the father of English literature. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales. He is also credited by some scholars with being the first author to demonstrate the artistic legitimacy of the vernacular English language, rather than French or Latin.

Yorkist heir

His eldest brother John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln (c. 1464-1487), is said to have been named heir to the throne by his maternal uncle, Richard III of England, who gave him a pension and the reversion of the estates of Lady Margaret Beaufort. However on the accession of Henry VII following the Battle of Bosworth Field, Lincoln took the oath of allegiance instead of claiming the throne for himself.

In 1487, Lincoln joined the rebellion of Lambert Simnel, and was killed at the Battle of Stoke. The second brother Edmund (c. 1472-1513), succeeded his father while still in his minority. His estates suffered under the attainder of his brother, and he was compelled to pay large sums to Henry VII for the recovery of part of the forfeited lands, and also to exchange his title of duke for that of earl. In 1501 he sought Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor in Tyrol, and received from him a promise of substantial assistance in case of an attempt on the English crown.

In consequence of these treasonable proceedings Henry seized his brother William de la Pole, with four other Yorkist noblemen. Two of them, Sir James Tyrrell and Sir John Wyndham, were executed, William de la Pole was imprisoned and Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk outlawed. Then in July 1502 Henry concluded a treaty with Maximilian by which the king bound himself not to countenance English rebels. Presently Suffolk fell into the hands of Philip I of Castile, who imprisoned him at Namur, and in 1506 surrendered him to Henry VII, on condition that his life was spared. He remained a prisoner until 1513, when he was beheaded at the time his brother Richard took up arms with the French king.

Richard de la Pole joined Edmund abroad in 1504, and remained at Aix-la-Chapelle as surety for his elder brothers debts. The creditors threatened to surrender him to Henry VII, but, more fortunate than his brother, he found a safe refuge at Buda with King Ladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary. He was excepted from the general pardon proclaimed at the accession of Henry VIII, and when Louis XII of France went to war with the Kingdom of England in 1512 he recognized Pole's pretensions to the English crown, and gave him a command in the French army. In 1513, after the execution of Edmund, he assumed the title of Earl of Suffolk. In 1514 he was given 12,000 German mercenaries ostensibly for the defence of Brittany, but really for an invasion of England. These he led to St. Malo, but the conclusion of peace with England prevented their embarcation. Pole was required to leave France, and he established himself at Metz, in Lorraine, and built a palace at La Haute Pierre, near St. Simphorien.

While at Metz, he was visited by Pierre Alamire, the German-Netherlandish composer and music copyist, as a spy for Henry VIII. However de la Pole employed Alamire as a counter-spy against Henry, and Alamire, on being suspected of unreliability by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and Henry, never returned to England.

He had numerous interviews with King Francis I of France, and in 1523 he was permitted, in concert with John Stewart, 2nd Duke of Albany, the Scottish regent, to arrange an invasion of England, which was never carried out. He was with Francis I at the Battle of Pavia, where he was killed on February 24, 1525.

Further reading

• Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III. and Henry VII., edited by J. Gairdner (2 vols., Rolls Series, 24, 1861)
• Calendar of Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII.; and Sir William Dugdale, The Baronage of England (London, 1675)

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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