over the weak and worthless monarch as to become the virtual mistress of the kingdom. On the death of Henry in 1559, Diana retired into private life, and died in 1566. She was a woman of remarkable powers of mind.—J. T.
POITTEVIN, Eugene le. See Le Poittevin, Eugene.
POIVRE, Pierre, traveller and ecclesiastic, was born in 1715 at Lyons. As a missionary and philosophical observer he traversed a great part of the Chinese empire, and after his return to Europe and the relinquishment of his sacred calling, he was appointed by the French East India Company in 1749 to establish a branch of commerce in Cochin China. On account of the rare business talents and unswerving integrity that characterized him in this situation, he was chosen by the Duc de Choiseul as intendant to the isles of France and Bourbon. Amongst his improvements in these colonies may be mentioned the introduction of sheep from Madagascar, and the naturalization of the bread-fruit, clove, and nutmeg. He died in 1786, leaving an account of his travels in Asia and Africa; "Remarks on the History and Manners of the Chinese;" and "Discourses to the Inhabitants of the Isles of France and Bourbon."—W. J. P.
POLE, Reginald, Cardinal, archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Stourton Castle, Staffordshire, in 1500. His mother, Margaret Plantagenet, was a child of the famous earl of Warwick, "the king maker," and her only brother had been unjustly executed by Henry VII. (q.v.) After this she was married to Sir Richard Pole, a supporter and relative of the king. Reginald was the second son of this marriage. Left a widow, she was treated with kindness by Henry VII., mindful perhaps of the fate of her brother, and of her claims to respect as the only remaining Plantagenet of unblemished descent. She was created Countess of Salisbury in her own right. The household of the princess, afterwards queen, Mary, was placed under her care, and the estates of the Nevilles were restored to her. Reginald himself was educated at the Carthusian monastery at Sheen, and at Magdalen college, Oxford, Mr. Fronde says, "under the king's eye and at the king's expense." When little more than fifteen he took deacon's orders; and valuable ecclesiastical preferments were at once bestowed on him by Henry, who evidently intended him to fill the highest offices in the English church. He studied abroad, chiefly at Padua, and cultivated the society and correspondence of eminent scholars. When the question of Queen Catherine's divorce arose, Pole after some hesitation professed himself opposed to the measure; of his assent to which the archbishopric of York, after the death of Wolsey, would have been the reward. This difference with the king led him to return to the continent, but he was treated with unusual forbearance by Henry, and allowed to draw the revenues of his deanery of Exeter. At last Pole drew the sword and flung away the scabbard, by writing and sending to England in the early summer of 1536, his famous treatise, "De Unitate Ecclesiæ," a defence of the papal supremacy and a denunciation of Henry, not so violent as it subsequently became when printed towards the close of 1538, but violent enough to be treated as a declaration of war. In December, 1536, Pole received a cardinal's hat, and was sent as legate to strengthen rebellion in England, from the nearest points of France and Flanders, and to incite the chief princes of the continent against Henry and the English reformation. His missions, or series of missions, which extended over several years, practically failed. The chief result of his activity was to procure his own attainder, to bring his brother. Lord Montague, and some years later his mother, the countess of Salisbury, to the block, as participators in his treasonable designs. He attempted in vain to return to England at the accession of Edward VI., but with the opening of the reign of Mary, his prospects brightened. After the removal of various obstacles, and when Mary was married to Philip, Pole once more set foot in his native country, coming in triumph as the papal legate to reconcile England to Rome. He arrived at Dover on the 20th November, 1554. The measures taken after his arrival to carry out the policy which was the object of his life, have been sketched in the memoir of Queen Mary. On the day after the death of Cranmer, Pole was appointed archbishop of Canterbury. Despite this elevation, however, and the vigour of the Marian persecution, Pole's career was not one of uninterrupted triumph. When Mary sided with Philip against France, then allied to the see of Rome, Pope Paul IV., in his indignation, not only cancelled Pole's commission as legate, but revived against him an old charge of heresy, an accusation which did not tend to make Pole more lenient to the English "heretics" in his power. This treatment of him by the pope, to establish whose authority in England he had laboured through long years of exile, may have contributed to hasten his end. Mr. Froude goes the length of saying that he died of a broken heart. Ague was the nominal complaint which carried him off. Die he did, and curiously enough, sixteen hours after Queen Mary on the 18th November, 1558, "when the reign of the pope in England," says Mr. Froude, "and the reign of terror closed together." The private character of Pole was blameless. He was a scholar and a wit. Of his talents, the "De Unitate Ecclesiæ" Is a memorial. Nor was his natural disposition other than amiable and benevolent. But in spite of the efforts of his apologists, and even though it were granted that the latest student of his character and career, Mr. Froude, has somewhat exaggerated the influence which he exerted on Queen Mary, he must be pronounced one of the most ruthless if most sincere antagonists of the English reformation. "Carnifex et flagellum Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ," was Archbishop Parker's verdict on him "He had," says Mr. Froude, describing his personal appearance when as legate he addressed the lords and commons after his return to England, "the arched eyebrow and the delicately cut cheek and prominent eye of the beautiful Plantagenet face, a long brown curly beard flowed down upon his chest, which it almost covered; the mouth was weak and slightly open; the lips were full and pouting; the expression difficult to read."—F. E.
POLE, William de la, Baron of the exchequer in the reign of Edward III., was one of the sons of a rich merchant in the then rising port of Hull. He advanced money to Edward III., who, on his way to Scotland in 1332, is said to have knighted Pole, and to have conferred on him, then the principal officer of the town, the new title of mayor. Pole was afterwards employed by the king in missions to Flanders. "He was," says Mr. Foss (Lives of the Judges), "the general agent for the crown with the trading interest, and was commonly denominated the king's merchant." Appointed a baron of the exchequer in 1339, he died in 1366.—Pole, Michael de la, Earl of Suffolk and chancellor of England, son of the preceding, was appointed in the last year of Edward III.'s reign admiral of the king's fleet in the northern seas—a commission renewed by Richard II. He ingratiated himself with the new king, who made him chancellor in 1383, and in 1385 earl of Suffolk. Unpopular as a royal favourite, the chancellor was impeached by the parliament, the first instance of the kind in English history, found guilty of manifold offences, and imprisoned; he was released by Richard, and was one of the advisers who persuaded the king to disown the royal compact with the parliament, and the authority of the council with whose co-operation Richard had promised to govern. The council, however, gained the upper hand by calling a parliament which pronounced Pole and others, by default, guilty of treason. Pole fled to France, and died there in 1389.—F. E.
POLEMO, a Greek physiologist who lived in the early part of the christian era. The place of his birth is unknown. Some have asserted that he was an Athenian, but this is doubtful; and the notion that he was a christian, founded on several peculiarities in his mode of expression, seems to rest on very insufficient evidence. His work on physiognomy is extant, but the text is in a very corrupt state. It consists of two books, the first of which, in twenty-three chapters, treats of the general principles of physiognomy, and describes the most important of the features in detail. The second book contains twenty-seven chapters, and is occupied with the application of physiological principles to human character. His treatise is in Franz's scriptores Physiognomiæ Veteres, 1780.—D. M.
POLEMON, a citizen of Athens, philosopher and geographer, was the son of Euegetes, and lived early in the second century b.c. He was a stoic, and the disciple of Panætius. He travelled through Greece to gather materials for his geographical works, and copied many inscriptions on columns. His writings, however, are lost, except the fragments preserved in Athenæus and other writers. They were mostly on the geography of places in Greece. In some he described the paintings he had seen in different parts.—(Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, vol. iii.)—S. D.
POLEMON, Antonius, a sophist and rhetorician belonging to the second century of the christian era, was born at Laodicea, but spent the greater part of his life at Smyrna. It would appear that Smyrna and Laodicea also received many benefits from the Roman emperors Trajan, Hadrian, and the first Antoninus, through his instrumentality. Hence he was highly honoured
