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Historical Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541: Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership by Hazel Pierce $79.95 / Univ. of Wales Press / 2003 This biography of Margaret Pole grew out of the author's doctoral thesis, most of which contains dry and erudite essays on esoteric subjects, usually of interest only to fellow doctoral candidates. Fortunately, under Pierce's hands, Margaret Pole's life becomes, if not lively, then at least compelling. This remarkable Tudor-era figure, strong and independent in youth and redoubtable in age, was knocked about by the vacillating tides of 15th and 16th-century English politics. In the beginning, Margaret gains love through an arranged marriage, offers staunch friendship to Catherine of Aragon in her time of need (which later brings her that princess' unwavering support), and becomes one of the wealthiest and most influential women of the age. Despite her brother's death as a traitor (his only crime being his blood proximity to the throne), Margaret shows herself no threat, and raises her children in relative comfort and happiness, even after her husband's death leaves her bereft and fending for herself at the age of 31. But the tragedy of close blood ties to precarious dynasties eventually catches up with Margaret. Her son Reginald, despite the grace showered on him by Henry VIII, chooses loyalty to his Catholic faith when Henry VIII breaks from the Church, and Margaret becomes the only available focus for Henry's anger. Imprisoned in her old age by the enraged king and stripped of her wealth and status, Margaret suffers in ways hard to imagine in our more "civilized" century, until she dies on the block at the hands of a clumsy headsman, who hacks her to ribbons before felling the mortal blow. Yet Pole's story rises above this grisly finale, and in the end, it is not her death we remember, but her remarkable qualities. Pierce carries us through her life with a combination of scholarship, occasional pedantry, and a sure hand on the pen, and this biography is ultimately satisfying, if Margaret's demise was not. Though occasionally degenerating into one long paragraph, Pierce's writing is never off-putting or stale, and her scholarly tone manages to remain true to her academic environment while never boring the lay reader. Altogether, Margaret Pole is a worthy read, a comprehensive and entertaining evocation of an extraordinary woman who lived and died in an extraordinary time. —Anjuli McDonald of Clanranald

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