Geoffrey Pole

Margaret Pole's son

The story so far…

Week 44: Corpus Christi (Part 1/2)

August, 1538. Cromwell arrests Geoffrey Pole to send a message to his brother, Reginald. November, Geoffrey tries to kill himself and Cromwell comes in to take over the interrogation from Fitz and Richard.

Cromwell terrifies him with his grid, his candles and a hammer. Eventually the boy babbles, implicating his family, the Courtenays, members of More’s family and Bishop Stokesley. ‘At the foot of the page he scribbles, Geoffrey Pole your humble slave.’

   A week on, he will hear what the people of London are saying: that Geoffrey Pole was tortured at the Tower: that he was strapped to a grid, and it was heated, so he was grilled like St Lawrence the martyr. That Thomas Cromwell did it all.