The Life of Sir Geoffrey Pole - A Plantagenet Liability

With Wolf Hall having returned to our screens, in its new series The Mirror and the Light, and featuring the Pole family in a much bigger way than the first series, I thought the time would be right to explore the life of Sir Geoffrey Pole, played in the series by Pip Carter and who is introduced in the first episode, alongside Dame Harriet Walter as Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury. The real Geoffrey Pole was the youngest child of Margaret Pole and her husband, Sir Richard Pole. He was a knight and courtier during the reign of Henry VIII, who despite his position as a member of one of the most illustrious families in England would constantly be strapped for cash and prove fatally weak in his resolve, being ultimately quite responsible for much of the horrors that befell his family.