The temper of her house might be guessed from the conduct of the younger of the three brothers.

After refusing the highest favours from Henry as the price of his approval of the divorce, Reginald Pole had taken refuge at Rome, where he had bitterly attacked the king in a book on "The Unity of the Church." "There may be found ways enough in Italy," Cromwell wrote to him in significant words, "to rid a treacherous subject.
When Justice can take no place by process of law at home, sometimes she may be enforced to take new means abroad." But he had left hostages in Henry's hands.

"Pity that the folly of one witless fool," Cromwell wrote ominously, "should be the ruin of so great a family.

Let him follow ambition as fast as he can, those that little have offended (saving that he is of their kin), were it not for the great mercy and benignity of the prince, should and might feel what it is to have such a traitor as their kinsman." The "great mercy and benignity of the prince" was no longer to shelter them.

In 1538 the Pope, Paul the Third, published a bull of excommunication and deposition against Henry, and Pole pressed the Emperor vigorously though ineffectually to carry the bull into execution.