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, 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.
In the Martyrology
- May 28 Blessed Margaret Pole, mother of family, martyr of England