Cardinal Pole (1500-58) is little known in his native country. One of the reasons in obvious: Pole's chief intervention in English affairs-his attempt to restore Roman Catholicism under Queen mary-was unsuccessful, and this failure was followed by the growth of the specific English horror of 'Popery'. Other reasons play their part too: pole spent only eight years of his adult life in England but twenty nine on the Continent, and his contribution to English history is therefore bound to be rather limited.