Margaret Pole: The Last Plantagenet

Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury was sixty-eight years old when Henry VIII ordered her execution in 1541. In an age when most women of her rank faded quietly into retirement, Margaret met a far more violent end — not for anything she had done, but for who she was.

She was no ordinary noblewoman. Margaret Pole was the last surviving member of the Plantagenet dynasty, born with royal blood that predated the Tudors themselves. Her lineage alone made her dangerous in the eyes of a paranoid king who saw threats everywhere.

For years, Margaret had lived a respectable life. She served as a lady-in-waiting to queens, managed vast estates, and was known for her piety and dignity. But her son, Cardinal Reginald Pole, became one of Henry VIII’s most outspoken critics abroad, openly condemning the king’s break from the Catholic Church.

Henry could not reach Reginald.
So he struck his mother.

Margaret was arrested in 1538 on charges of treason — without trial, without evidence that would hold under scrutiny. She was taken to the Tower of London, where she remained imprisoned for more than two years. By the time she was brought out for execution, she was elderly, isolated, and physically weakened by confinement.

What followed became one of the most infamous executions of the Tudor period.

The skilled executioner was away traveling with the king. In his place stood an untrained man. Margaret refused to kneel, declaring, “I am no traitor.” The execution descended into chaos. The axe missed its mark again and again. Contemporary accounts claim it took as many as ten blows to kill her.

Some later stories say she tried to flee across Tower Green, pursued by her executioner — though historians still debate whether this detail is fact or legend. What is certain is that her death horrified witnesses and cemented her reputation as a martyr to Tudor cruelty.

Margaret Pole’s execution marked the symbolic end of the Plantagenet line. She was not executed for rebellion, conspiracy, or treasonous action. She was executed because bloodlines still mattered — and hers frightened a king who ruled by fear.

Centuries later, her story endures as one of the darkest examples of how power was maintained in Tudor England: not just by law, but by erasure, terror, and blood.

History remembers Henry VIII as a king.
Margaret Pole is remembered as his victim — and the last of a royal house he could never fully destroy.