Sir William de la Pole (1478 – sometime between October and November 1539),Weir, Alison. ''Britain's Royal Family: A Complete Genealogy'' London, U.K.: The Bodley Head, 1999. p. 135 was an English nobleman, and

Knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...

of Wingfield Castle in

Wingfield, Suffolk Wingfield is a village in the English county of Suffolk. It is found east of Diss, signposted off B1118, near Eye. Wingfield Castle, which is now a private house, was for many centuries the home of the Wingfield family and their heirs, the De ...

. He was the son of

John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk, KG (27 September 1442 – 14–21 May 1492), was a major magnate in 15th-century England. He was the son of William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and Alice Chaucer, the daughter of Thomas Chaucer ...

(1442–1492) and Elizabeth Plantagenet (Elizabeth of York, Duchess of Suffolk) (1444–1504). Through his mother, he was clearly in the line of succession to the English Crown, with ultimately disastrous consequences for himself. Around 1497, he married Katherine Stourton, daughter of William Stourton, 2nd Baron Stourton and Margaret Chidiocke, but they had no issue. Katherine, twice widowed and aged about 42, was more than 20 years older than William, so the motive for the marriage was probably financial (her second husband, Henry, Lord Grey of Codnor, had left her much of his property). He was brother to

John de la Pole, 1st Earl of Lincoln John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln (c. 1460 – 16 June 1487) was a leading figure in the Yorkist aristocracy during the Wars of the Roses. After the death of his uncle Richard III, de la Pole was reconciled with the new Tudor regime, but two year ...

Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk, 6th Earl of Suffolk, KG (c. 147130 April 1513), Duke of Suffolk, was a son of John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk and his wife Elizabeth of York. Although the male York line ended with the death of Edw ...

and

Richard de la Pole Richard de la Pole (died 24 February 1525) was a pretender to the English crown. Commonly nicknamed "White Rose", he was the last Yorkist claimant to actively and openly seek the crown of England. He lived in exile after many of his relatives w ...

. As nephews of Edward IV the de la Pole family had a much stronger hereditary claim to the throne than Henry VII, who was descended through his mother from an illegitimate son of John of Gaunt. Even if William, unlike his brothers, had no personal ambition to seize the throne, his ancestry would have made it impossible for Henry to trust him. The discovery of a plot involving the de la Pole brothers in 1501 sealed William's fate. He was held prisoner in the

Tower of London The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is sep ...

for 37 years till his death, longer than anyone else in the Tower's history, for allegedly plotting against King Henry VII with his brothers Edmund and Richard, who fled the country in 1501, after their

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agre ...

was detected. The fact that William did not flee with them might have been seen as evidence that he was innocent, but the King was clearly taking no chances about his loyalty.Chrimes, p. 93

Ancestors

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:De La Pole, William 1478 births 1539 deaths 15th-century English people 16th-century English people

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

People from Mid Suffolk District English knights Younger sons of dukes