Richard de la Pole, fifth son of John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk and Elizabeth of York, was a Yorkist claimant to the English throne and a definite thorn in the side of Henry VIII.
De la Pole, known by his moniker ‘The White Rose’, had a claim to the crown that was arguably more valid than that of the Tudors. His maternal grandfather was Richard, 3rd Duke of York, the great-grandson of Edward III through the king’s second son, Lionel of Antwerp, rather than the king’s fourth son, John of Gaunt, as the Tudors were. Richard de la Pole was the nephew of kings Edward IV and Richard III, and de la Pole’s eldest brother, John de la Pole, 1st Earl of Lincoln, had been Richard III’s heir until the last Plantagenet king had been killed at Bosworth Field.
Although few people really remember him now, while he was alive Richard de la Pole was a serious danger to King Henry VIII’s crown. The de la Poles had the backing of the French and thus the possible means of overthrowing the Tudor monarchy with military force. When Henry VIII and Louis XII of France went to war in 1512, on of the first things France did was recognise Richard’s brother Edmund as the ‘rightful’ King of England and give Richard a command in the French army. In retaliation (and fear), King Henry had Edmund executed, leaving Richard the heir to the title of Earl of Suffolk. In 1514:
Richard 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 … Richard de la Pole 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.
Henry was rightfully worried by the de la Pole family’s connections to the crown. It is little wonder that when Henry rejoiced when the White’s Rose died at the hands of Charles V’s troops in the Battle of Pavia on 24 February 1525. When Henry VIII heard about de la Pole’s demise, the king ordered the Te Deum sung in churches throughout the land on 9 March as a sign of his profound thanksgiving. As far as Henry was concerned, God had thoughtfully slaughtered the only de la Pole still on the lose and capable of threatening Henry’s rule. Henry conveniently had Richard’s brother, Sir William de la Pole, of Wingfield Castle, held prisoner in the Tower of London, and there the king kept him for thirty seven years. No one knows if William’s death in 1539 was a natural one or done under the king’s covert orders.
What is certain is that Henry VIII order the death of Richard de la Pole’s cousin, Margaret Plantagenet, who had been married off to a Welsh knight, Sir Richard Pole, Henry VII’s cousin and the son of Margaret Beaufort‘s half-sister, Edith St John. Margaret Pole was the daughter of George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, second son of Richard, 3rd Duke of York and Richard de la Pole’s maternal uncle. Margaret Pole was ‘too’ close to the throne, but Henry VIII had elevated her to the Countess of Salisbury in 1509 and treated her well for decades … until he went batcrap crazy in the early 1530s. A paranoid monster by the 1540s, Henry VIII had his 67 year old cousin hacked to death on 27 May 1541.
The existence of men who could legitimately declare that they had the right to rule the kingdom shines a softer light on Henry’s yearning for a male heir of his own. The Tudor throne was shakier than we tend to think of it as having been, the Wars of the Roses was only a generation in the past. Henry VIII was always a little afraid, and when that fear became paranoia, the king became a killer.
Interestingly enough, Richard de la Pole’s father had been the first husband of Henry VII’s mother, Margaret Beaufort. If the betrothal between John de la Pole and Margaret Beaufort had not been voided, York and Lancaster scions would have been one in the same. If Richard III had heirs, would Margaret Beaufort’s son still come to the throne …. but as the Yorkist-bred Duke of Suffolk instead of the Welsh-born Earl of Richmond?