| Genealogical Table of the House of York | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Edward III. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Edward the Black Prince | William of Hatfield (died young) | Lionel duke of Clarence | Elizabeth d. of William de Burgh, earl of Ulser | John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster | Edmund, duke of York | Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester | William of Windsor (died young) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Richard II (dethroned 1399) | Edmund Mortimer third earl of March | Philippa | Henry IV | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Edward, duke of York | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Roger Mortimer fourth earl of March | Eleanor Holland, eldest daughter of Thomas second earl of Kent | Henry V | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Henry VI | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Edward prince of Wales | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Edmund Mortimer, fifth earl of March | Anne Mortimer | Richard earl of Cambridge (executed 1415) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cecily Neville daughter of Ralph earl of Westmorland | Richard duke of York (killed in battle 1460) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Edward IV (d. 1483) | George, duke of Clarence (attainted 1478) | Richard III (killed in battle 1485) | Anne[1] | Elizabeth | John de la Pole, duke of Suffolk (d. 1491) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Edward V (murdered 1483) | Richard duke of York (murdered 1483) | Edward, prince of Wales (d. 1484) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Edward, earl of Warwick (executed 1499) | Margaret, countess of Salisbury (executed 1541) | Sir Richard Pole | John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln (d. 1487) | Edmund de la Pole (d. 1513) | Humphrey and Edward churchmen | Richard de la Pole (d. 1525) | Four daughters | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Henry Pole, Lord Montague (executed 1539) | Sir Geoffrey Pole, of Lordington, Sussex | Arthur Pole | Reginald Pole cardinal | Ursula[2] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Five sons and one daughter. Among the former were Arthur and Edmund, who were prisoners in the Tower | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
children, a son and a daughter, and the attainder of their father could not be a greater bar to the crown than the attainder of Henry VII. himself. Seeing this, Henry had, immediately after his victory at Bosworth, secured the person of the son, Edward, earl of Warwick, and kept him a prisoner in the Tower of London. Yet a formidable rebellion was raised in his behalf by means of Lambert Simnel, who was defeated and taken prisoner at the battle of Stoke in 1487. The earl of Warwick lived for twelve years later in unjust confinement, and was ultimately put to death in 1499 because he had consented to a plot for his own liberation. As to his sister Margaret, she was married to one of Henry VII.'s Welsh followers, Sir Richard Pole (or Poole), and could give no trouble, so that, when Henry VIII. came to the throne, he thought it politic to treat her with kindness. He made her countess of Salisbury, reversed her brother's attainder, created her eldest son, Henry, Lord Montague, and caused one of her younger sons, Reginald, who displayed much taste for learning, to be carefully educated. This, however, was the very thing which involved the whole family in ruin. For Henry looked to the learning and abilities of Reginald Pole to vindicate before Europe the justice of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon; and, when Pole was conscientiously compelled to declare the very opposite, the king's indignation knew no bounds. Pole himself was safe, having secured some time before a retreat in Italy. He was even made a cardinal by the pope. But this only made matters worse for his family at home: his brother, Lord Montague, and even his mother, the aged countess of Salisbury, were beheaded as traitors because they had continued to correspond with him. Cardinal Pole, however, came back to his own country with great honour in the reign of Queen Mary, and was made archbishop of Canterbury on the deprivation of Cranmer.
Early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, two nephews of the cardinal, Arthur and Edmund Pole, being ardent young men, conspired to go over to the duke of Guise in France, hoping to return with an army into Wales and so promote the claims of Mary Queen of Scots to the crown of England, for which service the elder, Arthur, expected to be restored to the dukedom of Clarence. The result was that they were condemned to death, but were only imprisoned for the rest of their days in the Tower, where they both carved inscriptions on the walls of their dungeon, which are still visible in the Beauchamp tower.
Another branch of the house of York might have given trouble to the Tudors if they had not been narrowly watched and ultimately extinguished. Of the sisters of Edward IV., the eldest, Anne, who married the duke of Exeter, left only one daughter by her second husband, Sir Thomas St Leger; but the second, Elizabeth, married John de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, and had several children. Their eldest son was created earl of Lincoln during his father's life, and Richard III., after the death of his own son, had designated him as his successor. Disappointed of a kingdom by the success of Henry VII., he joined in Simnel's rebellion and was killed at the battle of Stoke. His brother Edmund thus became heir to his father; but in the reduced circumstances of the family he agreed to forbear the title of duke and take that of earl of Suffolk. He continued for some years in favour with the king, who made him a knight of the Garter; but, having killed a man in a passion, he fled abroad and was entertained at the court of the emperor Maximilian, and afterwards at that of Philip, king of Castile, when resident in the Low Countries before his departure for Spain. Philip, having been driven on the English coast when going to take possession of his Spanish kingdom, was entertained at Windsor by Henry VII., to whom he promised to deliver up the fugitive on condition that his life should be spared. Edmund de la Pole accordingly was brought back to England and lodged in the Tower. Though the promise to spare his life was kept by the king who gave it, his son Henry VIII. caused him to be executed in 1513, when war broke out with France, apparently for treasonable correspondence with his brother Richard, then in the French service. After his death Richard de la Pole, remaining in exile, called himself earl of Suffolk, and was flattered occasionally by Francis I. with faint hopes of the crown of England. He was killed at the battle of Pavia in 1523. There were no more De la Poles who could advance even the most shadowy pretensions to disturb the Tudor dynasty. (J. Ga.)
YORK, EDMUND OF LANGLEY, Duke of (1341–1402), fifth son of Edward III., was born at King's Langley in Hertfordshire on the 5th of June 1341. He accompanied his father on a campaign in France in 1359, was created earl of Cambridge in 1362, and took part in expeditions to France and Spain, being present at the sack of Limoges in 1370. After marrying Isabella (d. 1393), daughter of Peter the Cruel, king of Castile, he was appointed one of the English lieutenants in Brittany, whither he led an army in 1375. A second campaign in Brittany was followed in 1381 by an expedition under the earl's leadership to
