POLE, German (1626-83), of Radbourne, Derbys.

The Poles had been leading members of the Derbyshire gentry since the fourteenth century. Pole’s ancestor Peter de la Pole had represented the county in the 1401 Parliament and had established the family’s principal residence at Radbourne, near the Derbyshire-Staffordshire border.29Cox, Churches of Derbys. iii. 213; HP Commons 1386-1421, ‘Peter de la Pole’. A minor and ward of his mother at the outbreak of civil war, Pole played no part in the county’s affairs before the 1650s. 30WARD9/208, f. 166. He seems to have spent most of the period 1647-50 as a student at Gray’s Inn, which was probably where he became acquainted with his future father-in-law Richard Newdigate, a Gray’s Inn bencher.31Derbys. RO, D5557/2/4, 6, 7. On the eve of Pride’s Purge, Pole was one of three gentlemen nominated by Nathaniel Hallowes* for sheriff of Derbyshire – the Commons having ordered Hallowes to make a new selection after he had objected to the initial nominees as ‘malignants’. However, Pole’s father-in-law, Sir John Curzon*, intervened on his behalf and he escaped being pricked.32Derbys. RO, D5557/2/8/1.

Pole’s personal accounts for the years 1649-50 reveal a young man for whom the burden of the shrievalty would have been particularly onerous.33Derbys. RO, D5557/10/1. He seems to have spent many hours gambling at cards and dice (on one occasion losing over £5), playing tennis, taking fencing and dancing lessons and entertaining young ladies in Hyde Park. He was also interested in the latest pamphlet literature, paying 2s 6d for ‘[John] Lilburne’s book’ and 6d for Henry Neville’s* Parliament of Ladies. It is perhaps not surprising that by 1653 he seems to have racked up debts of almost £3,000.34Derbys. RO, D5557/10/2. His friends and social companions during the 1650s included the former royalist Sir John Harpur and the parliamentarians Gervase Bennett*, Hallowes and Sir Samuel Sleigh*.35Derbys. RO, D5557/2/9/1-4; D5557/2/15/24; D5557/2/29; D5557/2/43/8; D5557/2/59; D5557/2/194; D5557/2/197. He was particularly close to Sleigh – the two men often acting as parties in their respective legal and property dealings.36Add. 6672, f. 102; C6/131/177; Derby Local Studies Lib. Deeds, nos. 4076, 5882; Staffs. RO, B/C/11, Will of Sir Samuel Sleigh, 1679.

Despite his fondness for gambling and other social activities usually associated with the ungodly, Pole (like his friend Sleigh) was active on the Derbyshire commission for assisting Major General Edward Whalley* during the mid-1650s.37TSP iv. 212. Pole’s apparent involvement in administering the decimation tax may not have played well with some of the Derbyshire voters.38Derbys. RO, D5557/2/47/1. Nevertheless, he was able to claim the fourth and last place in the county elections to the second protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1656.39Supra, ‘Derbyshire’. His electoral interest probably rested on his family’s illustrious name in the county and his links with local parliamentarian grandees like Sleigh, who was returned in second place. Pole shared part of the coach journey from Derbyshire to Westminster with Colonel William Purefoy I*, and even before reaching London he was contemplating a swift return to Radbourne.40Derbys. RO, D5557/2/195. The fact that he was not among those Members excluded by the protectoral council did not alter his resolve to quit the House just weeks into the session – much to his mother’s alarm

You speak of coming into the country, which makes me much troubled, for though you be never so zealous for them, yet your coming away will give occasion for suspicion ... I fear they delude you in persuading you there is hopes to get off. I pray you stay till your father [Newdigate] come up and advise with him before you attempt any such thing, for fear of running yourself into more danger then you are aware of.41Derbys. RO, D5557/2/19/4; D5557/2/43/3.

Pole took her advice, and by early October his grandfather was congratulating him on what was presumably his opening speech in the House.

It is every man’s sense ... that much of honesty – wisely veiled under the pretext of a becoming modesty – hath in your opportune and most seasonable speech, taken a plain and yet secure way to manifest itself in. The Speaker is by many thanked on your behalf, for that it is said he returned you a more than ordinary solemn thanks. Amongst other report [sic] tells us you are thinking of a register for every county [i.e. a means of recording and establishing title to property]. I remember it was Mr [Gervase] Bennett’s mark when in agitation some Parliaments past. It is now, I presume, below him.42Derbys. RO, D5557/2/45.

In the event, Pole remained at Westminster until at least the end of the first session in June 1657.43Derbys. RO, D5557/2/44/2; CJ vii. 557b. But he was content to receive just three committee appointments, and if he made any further contributions to debate they have left no mark upon the records.44CJ vii. 444a, 557b.

Pole’s experiences at Westminster in 1656-7 seem to have put him off pursuing his parliamentary career any further. After his second marriage late in 1650, he had evidently lost his appetite for London and its various pleasures, and on one of his subsequent visits to the capital he declared himself ‘extremely weary of this town’.45Derbys. RO, D5557/2/207. Little can be gleaned of his political leanings during the later 1650s. But if a letter from his friend Edward Bradshaw – possibly the Chester alderman and MP of that name – in the summer of 1659 is at all indicative of his own views, he was broadly sympathetic to the restored Rump and had little liking for the radical sects, the episcopalians, or the religious Presbyterians.46Derbys. RO, D5557/2/39/4. Pole was active on the Derbyshire militia commission in the wake of Sir George Boothe’s* rebellion in August 1659 (as were Hallowes, Sleigh, Nathaniel Barton* and Thomas Sanders*), but apparently refused to attend its proceedings under the committee of safety set up after the army dissolved the Rump in October.47SP28/226, unfol.; SP28/322, ff. 679, 684; Derbys. RO, D5557/2/16/8; D5557/2/57. He was involved in remodelling the Derbyshire militia forces in the spring of 1660, and although he does not appear to have stood in elections for the 1660 Convention, he was kept abreast of the contest for the shire places by Bennett.48St. 185, f. 151; Derbys. RO, D5557/2/59. He negotiated the transition to monarchy with remarkable ease and remained a force in local government into the 1670s.

Pole died, childless, on 28 March 1683 and was buried the next day in Radbourne church.49Radbourne par. reg.; MI of German Pole, Radbourne. About a year before his death he had settled the bulk of his estate upon his eldest nephew.50Add. 6688, f. 58. In his will, he made bequests totalling over £1,500 and parcelled out the remainder of his estate among his widow, relatives and servants.51Staffs. RO, B/C/11, Will of German Pole, 1683.