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From: Tim Powys-Lybbe <>
Subject: Re: CP Addition: Richard Pole's 1st marriage to Alice Stradling
Date: Sat, 03 Apr 2004 12:02:14 +0100
References: <5cf47a19.0404011611.474a02b5@posting.google.com>


In message of 2 Apr, (Douglas Richardson) wrote:

> Margaret married before November 1487 Richard Pole (or Poole), K.G.
> (died 1504), of Ellesborough and Medmenham, Buckinghamshire, son and
> heir of Geoffrey Pole, Knt., by his 1st wife, Edith Saint John.

Let's take the small error first: Geoffrey Poole was not a knight. In
Testamenta Vetusta, Vol I, p. 338, where an abstract of his will is
printed, he is called esquire. This is confirmed by CP Vol XIV, p. 567.

Revisiting Testamenta Vetusta, his name is clearly spelt Poole and so
are the surnames of his sons Richard and Henry. But this is only an
abstract of Geoffrey's will so I turned to the official transcript, but
not the original will of course, available on the London PRO site of
Documents On Line:
http://www.documentsonline.pro.gov.uk/
Geoffrey is there spelt Galfridus Poole and the same is used for his
sones later in the will. Though I did note that some scribe had written
in the margin "Galfridi Pole".

The most prominent member of that family was doubtless the cardinal,
whom I was indeed educated to know as Cardinal Pole. So I was
surprised to see in the book of the Oxfordshire Visitation of 1566 the
following entry on page 96 for the east window of the Founders chamber
of Maudelyn Coledge (sic) a description of the arms of the cardinal with
over it:

poole Cardanall

Further this is the spelling used of the family in the various
visitation records, Sussex 1530 & 1633-4, p. 89 and Bedfordshire of
1566, 1582 and 1634, p. 52.

Finally I was intrigued to find in Smyth's "Lives of the Berkeleys" Vol
II, p. 274, that the same spelling of "Poole" was still being used in
the 1620s when Smyth wrote this, though he may just have been copying a
document of 1556.

My conclusion is that the almost universal practice of the time of this
Poole family is that they spelt it thus. When and why the modern form
of "Pole" came in I do not know.

--
Tim Powys-Lybbe
For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org

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