Reginald Pole (1500–1558)

Reginald Pole, an early example of religiously motivated emigration from England, was a humanist and theologian who had studied at Oxford and Padua. Although he was related to Henry VIII and as late as 1529/1530 had tried to obtain a positive judgement from the Sorbonne in the king's divorce proceedings, he withdrew his support in 1530 and rejected the bishoprics of York and Winchester, which the king had offered him. In 1532 he went into exile in Italy, where he was made a cardinal in 1536. During the Catholic restoration he returned to England and became the last Roman Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury in 1555.

Portrait du Cardinal Polus, etching by Nicolas de Larmessin (1684–1755) after a painting by Sebastiano del Piombo (1485–1547) or Raffael (1483–1520), Paris, 1729; source: www.gallica.bnf.fr, stable URL: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b69560374/f1.item.