Exhibition: Reformation Cardinal

Born in 1500 into the highest circles of the English aristocracy and then lifted as high in the Church, Reginald Pole’s life was spent steering a perilous course through the storm of the European Reformation.

Pole was made a cardinal in 1536 and later came within one vote of the papal throne. His great period of service in England arrived three decades after he had left, when in 1553 Mary Tudor appointed him to be archbishop of Canterbury and they began the work of reconciling the English Church to Rome.

This exhibition gathers books from Oxford, London, and Rome to tell his story. The Pole who emerges is a complex and agonized individual, someone of sincerity and of evident charm, a connoisseur, a man of strong faith, a European statesman—and a battler for moderation within the limits of the possible.