Blessed Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury

Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury (14 August 1473 – 27 May 1541), was the only surviving daughter of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence (a brother of Kings Edward IV and Richard III), and his wife Isabel Neville. As a result of Margaret's marriage to Richard Pole, she was also known as Margaret Pole. She was one of just two women in 16th-century England to be a peeress in her own right (suo jure) without a husband in the House of Lords. One of the few members of the House of Plantagenet to have survived the Wars of the Roses, Margaret was executed in 1541 at the command of King Henry VIII, the second monarch of the House of Tudor, who was the son of her first cousin, Elizabeth of York. Pope Leo XIII beatified her as a martyr for the Catholic Church on 29 December 1886. One of her sons, Reginald Pole, was the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury. Margaret was born at Farleigh Castle in Somerset. She was the only surviving daughter of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, and his wife Isabel Neville. George was a son of Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, and a brother of both Edward IV and Richard III. Isabel was the elder daughter and coheiress of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick ("Warwick the Kingmaker"), and his wife Anne Beauchamp, 16th Countess of Warwick. Warwick was killed fighting against Margaret's uncles at the Battle of Barnet. Her father, already Duke of Clarence, was then created Earl of Salisbury and of Warwick. Edward IV declared that Margaret's younger brother, Edward, should be known as Earl of Warwick, but only as a courtesy title, and no peerage was ever created for him. Margaret would have had a claim to the Earldom of Warwick, but the earldom was forfeited on the attainder of her brother Edward. She was most likely named after her paternal aunt Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy. Isabel died suddenly on 22 December 1476, when Margaret was only three years old.