A Hostile Cardinal: Reginald Pole and his Apologia

Abstract From the end of 1538, well into 1539, Cardinal Reginald Pole was composing a work which he intended for the Emperor Charles V. It is known as the Apologia Reginaldi Poli ad Carolum V. Caesarem super quatuor libris a se scriptis de unitate ecclesiaethe title bestowed by its eighteenth-century editor-though, as far as we know, it was never actually presented to the Emperor; and it was not published until some 200 years after its composition.1 In the course of this Apologia, it became expedient to attack Il Principe in a section which has given Pole some claim to be considered as Machiavelli’s first serious adversary. But Pole’s views on Machiavelli are only incidental to the purpose of the work in which they occur. In order to understand the attack on Machiavelli, we must understand what the Apologia is about; and to understand that we must consider the sequence of events which led to its composition.