page_title: John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk
section_title: Tomb
hierarchical_section_title: John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk / Last years and death / Tomb
caption_attribution_description: St Andrew's church Wingfield Suffolk. Effigies of John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk (1442-1492), KG, of Wingfield Castle, and his wife Elizabeth of York (1444-c.1503) (also known as Elizabeth Plantagenet), a daughter of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York (a great-grandson of King Edward III) and a sister of King Edward IV and of King Richard III.
context_page_description: John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk, KG, was a major magnate in 15th-century England. He was the son of William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and Alice Chaucer, the daughter of Thomas Chaucer. His youth was blighted, in 1450, by the political fall and subsequent murder of his father, who had been a favourite of the king, Henry VI, but was increasingly distrusted by the rest of the nobility. Although the first duke of Suffolk had made himself rich through trade and – particularly – royal grants, this source of income dried up on his death, so John de la Pole was among the poorest of English dukes on his accession to the title in 1463. This was a circumstance which John felt acutely; on more than one occasion, he refused to come to London due to his impoverishment being such that he could not afford the costs of maintaining a retinue.
  As a youth, John de la Pole married twice; his first marriage was annulled, but his second marriage, to Elizabeth of York, made him the brother-in-law of two kings, Edward IV and Richard III. It brought him eleven children, the eldest of whom, John, would eventually be named heir to Richard III in 1484 and die in battle in the Yorkist cause.
context_section_description: Suffolk's tomb in St Andrew's Chapel of Wingfield church depicts him in effigy wearing a ducal robe and coronet. Historians have noted the difference between Suffolk's effigy and surviving effigies of some of his contemporaries (such as the Earl of Salisbury, for example, who is depicted on his tomb as merely a knight). It has been suggested that the nobility in general—and Suffolk in particular—were increasingly anxious "to set themselves apart from their social inferiors", even at burial. The tomb also bears what has been described by one antiquary as one of the "most beautiful representations" of both the Order and mantle of the Garter worn by fifteenth-century noblemen. It was complete with funeral armour, line of cresting, and his and his wife's faces were both done as portraits, and has been described elsewhere as "one of the finest examples" of the figure of a robed Knight of the Garter with his Lady.
caption: Effigies of John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk, KG, and his wife, in Wingfield Church, Suffolk.
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