Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541

Born in 1473, Margaret Pole was the daughter of George, duke of Clarence, niece of both Edward IV and Richard III, and the only woman, apart from Anne Boleyn, to hold a peerage title in her own right during the sixteenth century. She was restored by Henry VIII to her executed brother's earldom of Salisbury in 1512. In the 1530s, however, her deep Catholic convictions became increasingly out of favour with Henry and she was executed on a charge of treason in 1541 aged sixty-seven. In 1886, Margar