failure of the Pilgrimage of Grace and the process of reconstruction which followed it, bore witness to the thoroughness with which he had carried out his main aim in internal government, and to the security of the position to which he had elevated himself by his temporary success in establishing a royal despotism. CHAPTER XI CARDINAL POLE The story of the life of Reginald Pole and of the destruction of his illustrious family will always be inseparably bound up with the history of Thomas Cromwell. It affords the most striking example of the unscrupulous policy of the King’s minister towards those who stood in the way of the royal despotism in Church and State. It forms moreover a valuable connecting link between the internal and foreign administration of the time, as it concerns itself with nearly all the great problems which Cromwell had to face. To turn for a moment to the earlier history of Pole; he was born in March, 1500, the fourth son of Sir Richard Pole, and his wife Margaret, Countess of Salisbury[501]. In his youth Henry had helped him forward in his education, paying twelve pounds for his maintenance at school, and later obtaining for him a pension from the Prior of St. Frideswide’s, while he was an undergraduate at Magdalen College[502]. Subsequently, by the royal munificence Pole was enabled to go to Italy, where he worked with the foremost scholars of the time[503]. He returned to England in 1527 and there received many marks of distinction, but wishing to continue his studies, he soon removed to Paris. Henry was particularly anxious that the University there should pronounce in favour of the divorce, and with some difficulty induced Pole to carry on negotiations with it to that intent. When the University finally came to the decision that the King desired, Pole received a hearty letter of commendation and was subsequently induced to return to England[504]. Henry now urged him openly to support the divorce, and offered him as an inducement the archbishopric of York, which had been left vacant at Wolsey’s death, but in vain. Pole firmly refused to approve of the King’s new measures, saying that to do so would be inconsistent with his principles[505]. A little later he witnessed the concessions wrung from the clergy concerning the Royal Supremacy, and was not slow to perceive that it was by Cromwell’s agency that the entire ecclesiastical system of the country had been overthrown. He called to mind the conversation he had held years before with the ‘Satanae Nuncius,’ when the latter had dared to uphold the superiority of Machiavelli’s doctrines to the scholastic learning, and soon became convinced that England was not a safe place for a man of his ideas, while such a person as Cromwell was in power. He accordingly requested leave to continue his study of theology abroad, and obtained Henry’s consent[506].