Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury (14 August 1473 – 28 May 1541), also called Margaret Pole, as a result of her marriage to Sir Richard Pole, was the only surviving daughter of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, a brother of Kings Edward IV and Richard III (all sons of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York), by his wife Isabel Neville. Margaret was one of just two women in 16th-century England to be a peeress in her own right (suo jure) without a husband in the House of Lords. As one of the few members of the House of Plantagenet to have survived the Wars of the Roses, she was executed in 1541 at the command of King Henry VIII, the second monarch of the House of Tudor, who was the son of her first cousin, Elizabeth of York. Pope Leo XIII beatified her as a martyr for the Roman Catholic Church on 29 December 1886. Early life Margaret was born at Farleigh Castle in Somerset, the only surviving daughter of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, and his wife Isabel Neville, who was the elder daughter of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, and his wife Anne Beauchamp, 16th Countess of Warwick. Her maternal grandfather was killed fighting against her uncle, Edward IV, at the Battle of Barnet. Her father, already Duke of Clarence, was then created Earl of Salisbury and of Warwick. Edward IV declared that Margaret's younger brother, Edward, should be known as Earl of Warwick as a courtesy title, but no peerage was ever created for him. Margaret would have had a claim to the Earldom of Warwick, but the earldom was forfeited on the attainder of her brother Edward. Margaret's mother died when she was three; her father had two servants killed when he thought they had poisoned her. The Duke of Clarence plotted against Edward IV and in February 1478 was attainted and executed for treason. His lands and titles were thereby forfeited. Edward IV died in 1483 when Margaret was ten. The next year, the late king's marriage was declared invalid by the statute Titulus Regius of 1484, making his children illegitimate. Since Margaret and her brother, Edward, were debarred from the throne by their father's attainder, their uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was offered the crown and became king as Richard III. He married Anne Neville, a younger sister of Margaret's mother, Isabel. Richard