Edmund de la Pole’s execution is presented through the news of his death reaching his cousin Margaret Pole, rather than through an account of the execution itself. Ordered by the king after seven years of imprisonment, it is justified as a measure of security before war. For Margaret, the decision is at once a familiar act of dynastic fear and a personal bereavement; its intended effect, removing a rival, is already undone by the existence of another claimant.

Background and the King’s Decision

The queen tells Margaret that the king has ordered Edmund put to death. Margaret has expected the news and, for years, has believed it must come, yet expectation does not make the announcement easy to receive. Her immediate question is why the king has acted now. The queen answers that he could not leave for war while a pretender remained in the Tower. She adds that the council advised the decision as well, presenting it as a judgment made by the king with his advisers rather than as an isolated impulse.

The explanation makes the political calculation plain. Edmund’s confinement had lasted seven years, and Margaret protests that there had been no trouble during that time. His continued imprisonment had contained the danger as the authorities understood it; the prospect of the king’s departure for war changes their assessment. The account does not identify a new act by Edmund that prompted the order. Instead, his status as a potential claimant, combined with the king’s absence, is enough to make his continued survival seem intolerable to the government.

Margaret Receives the News

The conversation takes place under the chant of Mass. Before the queen speaks, the sharp ivory crucifix in Margaret’s palm gives physical form to her apprehension: she thinks she knows what the bad news will be. Once it is confirmed, she bows her head as though to pray but cannot find words for Edmund’s soul. The narrative joins a private act of mourning to the ceremony surrounding it, while showing how political violence enters even a religious moment.

The queen asks whether Margaret can forgive them. Her apology carries a particular burden: she remembers that Margaret’s brother, Edward Plantagenet, was the previous pretender to the Tudor throne and was killed so that she could come to England and marry Arthur Tudor. Margaret takes the queen’s hand and releases her from personal blame. She understands the act as the kind of choice a ruler might make to remove a rival, even as she cannot turn that understanding into comfort or prayer. The exchange does not resolve the loss; it distinguishes the queen’s remorse from the larger machinery of dynastic security.

A Rivalry That Cannot Be Ended

Margaret’s response turns from the death of one claimant to the limits of the king’s achievement. Edmund’s brother Richard de la Pole, now his heir, has fled England and is somewhere in Europe trying to raise an army. The execution may remove the imprisoned claimant from the king’s immediate reach, but it cannot remove the family’s claim or prevent another relative from taking Edmund’s place. Margaret sees the succession of possible rivals as continuing without end.

That recognition gives the event its bitter reversal. The order is meant to make the king safer as he leaves for war, but the larger threat Margaret identifies has already moved beyond England. The Crown can imprison and execute one Plantagenet; it cannot make the lineage disappear by eliminating its present representative. Margaret’s grief therefore carries a political judgment as well as a family one: the action may settle Edmund’s fate, but it does not settle the struggle over who may claim the throne.

Narrative and Dynastic Significance

The scene frames Edmund’s death through knowledge shared unequally among its participants. The queen explains the government’s reason and asks for forgiveness; Margaret recognizes that reason, remembers the earlier loss of her brother, and sees the next claimant emerging from the same family line. Her composure toward the queen contrasts with her inability to pray for Edmund, revealing how understanding the logic of an act differs from accepting its cost.

The execution also sharpens the book’s recurring contrast between the Tudor effort to secure rule and the persistence of Plantagenet identity. The king’s decision treats a possible rival as a danger even after years of confinement without trouble. Margaret, in turn, refuses to regard that decision as a final solution: each removal leaves another claimant in view. The episode ends not with dynastic security restored, but with the threat of succession still extending beyond the dead man and beyond the country’s borders.