The Codrington Library Plaster Busts by John Cheere,
All Souls College, Oxford University.
Part 16. David Pole (d. 1568)
Bishop of Peterborough.
Fellow of All Souls in 1520.
Some say bastard brother of Cardinal Pole.
David Pole devoted himself to civil law, and graduated B.Can.L. on 2 July 1526 and
D.Can.L. on 17 February 1527-1528. In 1529 he became an advocate in Doctors'
Commons.
He was connected with the diocese of Lichfield, where he held
preferments, first under Bishop Geoffrey Blyth, and then under Bishop Rowland
Lee. He was made prebendary of Tachbrook in Lichfield Cathedral on 11 April
1531, archdeacon of Salop in April 1536, and archdeacon of Derby on 8 January
1543.
He received the appointment of dean of the arches and
vicar-general of the archbishop of Canterbury on 14 November 1540. A
conscientious adherent of the Roman Catholic faith, he occupied several
positions of importance during Queen Mary's reign. In her first year he acted
as vicar-general of the bishop of Lichfield, Richard Sampson, and commissioner
for the deprivation of married priests, and in his capacity of archdeacon he
sat on the commission for the deprivation of Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley,
and Hugh Latimer, and the restoration of Edmund Bonner and other deprived
bishops. He stood high in the favour of Cardinal Pole, said to have been a
relative, who appointed him his vicar-general. During the vacancy of the see of
Lichfield on Bishop Sampson's death in 1554, he was appointed commissary for
the diocese. In the early part of the same year he took part in the
condemnation of John Hooper and Rowland Taylor. On 25 April 1556 he was
appointed on the commission to inquire after heretics, and to proceed against
them.
On the death of John Chambers, the first bishop of the newly
formed diocese of Peterborough, the queen sent letters commendatory to Pope
Paul IV in Pole's favour. He was consecrated at Chiswick on 15 August 1557 by
Nicholas Heath, archbishop of York. He shortly sanctioned the execution of John
Kurde, a Protestant shoemaker, who was burnt at Northampton on 20 September
1557.
On the accession of Elizabeth, he was on the first abortive
commission for the consecration of Matthew Parker as archbishop, 9 September
1559. In the same year he, with Bonner and two other prelates, signed
Archbishop Heath's letter of remonstrance to Elizabeth, begging her to return
to the Catholic faith. His refusal to take the oath under the act of supremacy
was followed by his deprivation; but he was treated leniently by the queen.
Allowed to live on parole in London or its suburbs, he died on one of his farms
in May or June 1568. His property he left to his friends, and his books on law
and theology to his college, All Souls'.
This information from Dictionary of National Biography (1885 - 1900).
