Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk

Edmund de la Pole
Duke/Earl of Suffolk
Arms of Sir Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk, KG
Yorkist heir to the Kingdom of England
Tenure	16 June 1487 – 30 April 1513
Predecessor	John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln
Successor	Richard de la Pole
Spouse(s)	Margaret Scrope
Noble family	York
Father	John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk
Mother	Elizabeth of York, Duchess of Suffolk
Born	1471 England
Died	30 April 1513 (aged 41–42)

Arms of De la Pole: Azure, a fess between three leopard's faces or

Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk, 6th Earl of Suffolk, KG (1471/1472 – 30 April 1513), Duke of Suffolk, was a son of John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk and his wife Elizabeth of York.

Family

His mother was the second surviving daughter of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville. She was also a younger sister to Edward IV of England and Edmund, Earl of Rutland, as well as an older sister to Margaret of York, George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, and Richard III of England.

His paternal grandparents were William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and Alice Chaucer. Suffolk was an important English soldier and commander in the Hundred Years' War, and later Lord Chamberlain of England. Alice Chaucer was a daughter of Thomas Chaucer, Speaker of the Commons on three occasions, Chief Butler of England for almost thirty years, and granddaughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer.

Yorkist heir

De la Pole's eldest brother John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln (c. 1464-1487), was the designated heir of his maternal uncle, Richard III of England,^[1] who gave him a pension and the reversion of the estates of Lady Margaret Beaufort. However, on the accession of Henry VII following the Battle of Bosworth Field, Lincoln took the oath of allegiance instead of claiming the throne for himself. In 1487, Lincoln joined the rebellion of Lambert Simnel and was killed at the Battle of Stoke.^[2]

After the death of his older brother, Edmund became the leading Yorkist claimant to the throne. Nevertheless, he succeeded to the title Duke of Suffolk in 1491, though in 1493 Edmund's title was demoted to the rank of Earl.^[3] He married Margaret, daughter of Richard Scrope.

In 1501 the headstrong Edmund fled the Kingdom of England with the help of James Tyrrell, who was subsequently executed for these actions.^[4] Edmund sought the help of Emperor Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor. In 1502 Maximilian agreed to a treaty not to back de la Pole should he make an attempt on the throne of England. In 1506, Maximilian's son, Philip of Burgundy, was blown off course while sailing, and reluctantly and unexpectedly became a guest of Henry VII. Needing to set sail again in order to claim his wife's inheritance (Castile), Philip was persuaded by Henry to hand over the Earl of Suffolk. Henry agreed to the proviso that Edmund would not be harmed and restricted himself to imprisoning the earl. The next king, Henry VIII, did not feel bound to this agreement and had Suffolk executed in 1513.^[5]

Montaigne, in his "Essays", said that Henry VII, in his will, instructed his son to put Suffolk to death immediately after his own decease, and he criticized Henry for requiring that his son do what he himself would not do.^[6]

Edmund's younger brother, Richard de la Pole, declared himself Earl of Suffolk and was the leading Yorkist pretender until his death at the Battle of Pavia on 24 February 1525.^[7]

Ancestors

Ancestors of Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk

16. Michael de la Pole, 1st Earl of Suffolk               8. Michael de la Pole, 2nd Earl of Suffolk                       17. Catherine Wingfield               4. William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk                             18. Hugh de Stafford, 2nd Earl of Stafford               9. Katherine de Stafford                       19. Philippa de Beauchamp               2. John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk                                   20. Geoffrey Chaucer               10. Thomas Chaucer                       21. Philippa Roet (sister of 31.)               5. Alice Chaucer                             22. Sir John Burghersh               11. Matilda Burghersh                       23.               1. Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk                                         24. Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York (brother of 30.)               12. Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge                       25. Isabella of Castile               6. Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York                             26. Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March               13. Anne de Mortimer                       27. Alianore Holland               3. Elizabeth of York                                   28. John Neville, 3rd Baron Neville de Raby               14. Ralph de Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland                       29. Maud Percy               7. Cecily Neville                             30. John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (brother of 24.)               15. Joan Beaufort                       31. Katherine Swynford (sister of 21.)

Notes

1. "Henry VII and the English nobility", T.B. Pugh, The Tudor nobility, ed. G.W.. Bernard, (Manchester University Press, 1992), 51.
2. "Henry VII and the English nobility", T.B. Pugh, The Tudor nobility, ed. G.W.. Bernard, 64.
3. Handbook of British Chronology, ed. E. B. Pryde, D. E. Greenway, (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 484.
4. S.B. Chrimes, Henry VII, (Yale University Press, 1977), 93.
5. J. D. Mackie, The Earlier Tudors, 1485-1558, (Clarendon Press, 1952), 267. – via Questia (subscription required)
6. Michel de Montaigne "Essays" (1580), Book One, Chapter 7 'That our actions should be judged by our intentions'.
7. J. L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503, (Oxford University Press, 2004), 207 n143. – via Questia (subscription required)

References

• Ewelme – The fall of the de la Pole family