given against them in the exchequer, the whole process was annulled in the parliament of July 1344 (Rolls of Parliament, ii. 154 a). Sir William de la Pole survived to enjoy the king's favour for more than twenty years, but he does not again appear in a prominent position. About 1350 he founded a hospital, the Maison Dieu, outside Hull, which he had at first intended to be a cell of Meaux, but afterwards converted to a college for six priests. In the last year of his life he obtained license to change it to a house for nuns of the order of St. Clare, and eventually, in 1376, his son Michael established it as a Carthusian priory (Chron. de Melsa, i. 170; Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vi. 19–22). Pole died at Hull on 21 April or 22 June 1366, and was buried, like his brother, in the Trinity Chapel (cf. Napier, Swyncombe, &c., p. 284). His will is printed in ‘Testamenta Eboracensia,’ i. 76–7.
He married Katherine, daughter of Sir Walter de Norwich [q. v.], who survived him, and, dying in 1381, was buried at the Charterhouse, Hull; her will is printed in ‘Testamenta Eboracensia,’ i. 119. Pole had four sons: Michael, earl of Suffolk [q. v.]; Walter and Thomas (d. 1361), both of whom were knights; and Edmund (1337–1417), who was captain of Calais in 1387, when he refused admission to his brother Michael lest he should be found false to his trust. The Edmund who fought at Agincourt was probably his grandson (Walsingham, Hist. Angl. ii. 169; Nicolas, Agincourt, pp. 128, 354; Archæologia, iii. 18). Pole had also two daughters: Blanche, who married Richard, first lord le Scrope of Bolton [q. v.]; and Margaret, married Robert Neville of Hornby, Lancashire. Sir William de la Pole's arms were azure, a fess between three leopards' faces or. The ‘Chronicle of Meaux’ (iii. 48) describes him as ‘second to no merchant of England.’ He is memorable in English commercial history as the first merchant who became the founder of a great noble house. His own and his wife's effigies, from the tomb in the church of the Holy Trinity, Hull, are engraved in Gough's ‘Sepulchral Monuments,’ i. 122.
[Information supplied by Professor T. F. Tout; Chronicon de Melsa, i. 170, iii 17, 48 (Rolls Ser.); Rymer's Fœdera, Record ed.; Rolls of Parliament; Calendars of Close Rolls, Edward II, and Patent Rolls, Edward III; Testamenta Eboracensia (Surtees Soc.); Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 182; Frost's Hist. of Hull, pp. 31, 85; Tickell's Hist. of Hull, p. 21; Poulson's Holderness, i. 56, 63, 64; Foss's Judges of England, iii. 478–81; Napier's Hist. Notices of Swyncombe and Ewelme, passim.]
POLE, WILLIAM de la, fourth Earl and first Duke of Suffolk (1396–1450), second son of Michael de la Pole, second earl [q. v.], was born on 16 Oct. 1396 at Cotton in Suffolk (Napier, pp. 47, 64–5). He served in the French campaign of 1415, but was invalided home after the siege of Harfleur (ib. p. 48). His father died before Harfleur, and his elder brother, the third earl, was slain at Agincourt on 25 Oct., and thus William de la Pole became Earl of Suffolk when only nineteen. Suffolk served in the expedition of 1417 with thirty men-at-arms and ninety archers (Gesta, App. p. 267), and in the early part of 1418 was employed in the reduction of the Cotentin. On 12 March 1418 he was granted the lordships of Hambye and Briquebec (Hardy, Rot. Norm. p. 318). During the summer he served under Humphrey of Gloucester at the siege of Cherbourg, and, when that town fell in October, went to join the king before Rouen (Chronique de Normandie, pp. 183, 191, ap. Gesta Henrici; Page, Siege of Rouen, p. 11). On 19 May 1419 he was appointed admiral of Normandy, in June captain of Pontorson, and in August captain of Mantes and Avranches (Fœdera, ix. 753, 772; Chron. A. de Richemont, p. 22; Doyle). He was a conservator of the truce with France on 27 June 1420 (Fœdera, ix. 856), and during the autumn served at the siege of Melun (Gesta, p. 144). When Henry V took Catherine to England in February 1421, Suffolk was one of the commanders left in charge of Normandy, and on 10 Feb. was named one of the conservators of the truce with Brittany (Fœdera, x. 61, 91, 152). Suffolk was made a knight of the Garter on 3 May 1421, in succession to Thomas, duke of Clarence (Beltz, Memorials of the Garter, p. clviii). When Henry came back to France, Suffolk joined the royal army (Elmham, Vita Henrici Quinti, p. 312); on 28 Sept. he was appointed warden of the lower marches of Normandy (cf. Hall, pp. 108–9).
After the death of Henry V, John of Bedford, on 10 Oct. 1422, appointed Suffolk guardian of the Cotentin (Chron. Mont St. Michel, i. 117). In 1423 Suffolk served in the important campaign in Champagne as second in command to Thomas de Montacute, earl of Salisbury [q. v.] In June 1424, he laid siege to Ivry-la-Chaussée. Under Bedford he was present at the surrender of Ivry on 15 Aug., and, when Bedford fell back on Evreux, was despatched with Salisbury to watch the French at Breteuil. Next day Suffolk sent news that the French were holding their ground. Bedford at once advanced, and on
