POLAR LIGHTS 



POLE 



281 



In electrolytic polarisation, however, it is difficult 

 to see any rotational analogy. Here the electrodes 

 which bring and carry away again the electric 

 current flowing through the decomposing liquid 

 acquire new properties and functions which have 

 distinct directive relations to the current that 

 produced them. See ELECTRICITY, INDUCTION, 

 MAGNETISM. 



In all the cases so far mentioned the polarity or 

 polarisation involved is of such a nature as that 

 originally typified by the sphere's rotation ; there 

 are two ends which in some respects have opposite 

 characteristics. In polarisation of Light (q.v.), 

 however, this condition is no longer always fulfilled. 

 For instance, a plane polarised ray of light which 

 is stopped by a Nicol prism passes more or less 

 completely as soon as the prism is rotated round an 

 axis codirectional with the ray. The ray has, in 

 fact, peculiarities as regards its sides its ' polarity' 

 is strictly speaking lateral, not polar. On the other 

 hand, in a circularly polarised rav we have, accord- 

 ing to the ordinary theory, a true kinematic polarity 

 of a rotational kind, so that, looking along the 

 ray, we are able to distinguish right-handed and 

 left-handed circular polarisations. It may be men- 

 tioned as a final illustration that the rotation of 

 the plane of polarisation by means of quartz or a 

 saccharine solution is not a real polar phenomenon, 

 the rotation being for any one substance always in 

 the same sense relatively to the travelling ray ; but 

 that the rotation of the plane of polarisation in a 

 magnetic field is a true polar phenomenon, chang- 

 fing sign with the direction of tlie field. 

 Polar Lights. See AURORA BOREALIS. 

 Polder, in the Netherlands, is land below the 

 level of the sea or nearest river, which, originally a 

 morass or lake, has been drained and brought under 

 cnltivation. An embankment, forming a canal of 

 sufficient height to command a run towards the sea 

 or river, is made, and when carried quite round, as in 

 the case of the Haarlem Lake, it is called the Ring- 

 vaart. At one or more points on the embankment 

 apparatus for lifting water is placed, and worked by 

 wind or steam power. If the lake deepens towards 

 the centre, several embankments and canals are 

 necessary, the one within the other, formed at 

 difFerent levels as the water-surface Incomes less- 

 ened, a connection being maintained with the outer 

 canal, which secures a run for the drainage water. 

 In the Schermer polder in North Holland are four 

 canal levels, the land between forming long parallelo- 

 grams. The water from the inner space is lifted 

 into the first canal ; that again, with the drainage 

 of the second section, is thrown into the second, and 

 so on until the outer canal is reached, and a fall 

 obtained. The polders in the Netherlands are very 

 numerous, the most important being the Haarlem 

 Lake (q.v.), possibly to be surpassed by that of the 

 Zuider Zee (q.v.). See also HOLLAND, Vol. V. p. 

 739. 



Pole. See ROD. 



Pole, DE LA, a family descended from William 

 de la Pole, a Hull merchant, whose son Michael in 

 1383 became chancellor under Richard II., in 1385 

 wan made Earl of Suffolk, and in 1389 died an exile 

 in France. His grandson William ( 1396-1450) was 

 the year before his death raised from Earl to be 

 Duke of Suffolk, having since 1445 been practically 

 prime-minister. His administration was a disastrous 

 one ; and he was on his way to a five years' banish- 

 ment in Flanders, when he was captured by a ship 

 ksent after him, and beheaded. John de la Pole, 

 Duke of Suffolk (died 1491), married Elizabeth, 

 sister to Edward IV. and Richard III. ; and from 

 tbU marriage sprang John, Earl of Lincoln (died 

 1487), Edmund, Earl of Suffolk (executed by Henry 

 VIII., 1513), two churchmen, four daughters, and 

 



Richard, on whose death at the battle of Pavia in 

 1525 the line became extinct. 



Pole, REGINALD, ' Cardinal of England,' was the 

 son of Sir Richard Pole, and Margaret, Countess 

 of Salisbury, the daughter of the Duke of Clarence 

 and niece of Edward IV. He was born in Stafford- 

 shire, March 1500. He received the rudiments of 

 is education from the Carthusians at West Sheen, 

 and at twelve years of age he was sent to Magdalen 

 College, Oxford. His relationship to the crown 

 made him an important person, anil being destined 

 for the church, he was presented at an early age 

 with several benefices. At nineteen he went to 

 Italy with a pension from the king to finish his 

 studies at Padua. He returned to England in 

 1525. He was then high in Henry's favour, while 

 Queen Catharine was much attached to his mother. 

 Pole's position, when the question of the king's 

 divorce was raised, became a difficult one. He 

 appeared at first disposed to take the king's side. 

 In 1530 we find him in Paris endeavouring to 

 obtain from the university a decision favourable 

 to the divorce, but shortly afterwards he became 

 disgusted with the policy of Cromwell, refused the 

 archbishopric of York which was offered to him on 

 the death of Wolsey, and remonstrated with the 

 king upon the course he was pursuing. Henry, 

 however, made no open quarrel with him ; and 

 Pole left England in 1532, and after a short stay 

 at Avignon took up his residence in Italy. Here 

 he formed intimate friendships with a number of 

 men of learning and piety 'Sadoleto, Contarini, 

 Morone, Flaminio, Pnuli, and others who were 

 urgent for an internal reformation of the church, 

 and whose views on justification by faith as a rule 

 approximated closely to the doctrine of Luther. 

 Pole still retained Ms English ecclesiastical re- 

 venues, and made no hostile demonstrations against 

 Henry, but in 1535 he entered into a political 

 correspondence with the Emperor Charles V. Pole 

 was now compelled by Henry to declare himself, 

 which he did in a violent letter addressed to the 

 king, afterwards famous in its revised form as the 

 treatise De Unitate Ecclesiastica. The king with- 

 drew Pole's pension and preferments. Paul III., 

 on the other hand, made him a cardinal (22d 

 December 1536), and sent him as legate to the 

 Low Countries to confer there with agents of the 

 English malcontents. Henry retaliated by caus- 

 ing a bill of attainder to be passed against him, 

 and by setting a price on his head. His mother, 

 witli other relatives, was thrown into the To\yer 

 on the ground of treasonable correspondence with 

 the cardinal, and subsequently beheaded. Pole's 

 diplomatic career was not, however, a brilliant one. 

 His several attempts to procure the invasion of 

 England were not successful. From 1539 to 1542 

 he acted as governor of the ' Patrimony of St Peter,' 

 of which Viterbo was the capital. He took an 

 active part in the discussions on the Interim, and 

 when the Council of Trent was opened in 1545, he 

 was one of the three cardinals who acted as legate- 

 presidents. In the conclave which followed on 

 the death of Paul III. in 1549, Pole was at one 

 moment on the point of being elected pope ; 

 after the election of Del Monte, as Julius III., he 

 lived in retirement at a Benedictine monastery at 

 Maguzzano on the lake of Garda, until the death 

 of Edward VI., when he was at once commissioned 

 to proceed to England as legate A latere, to assist 

 Queen Mary in the reconciliation of the kingdom 

 to the Church of Rome. 



Pole was still only in deacon's orders, and had 

 not abandoned the idea which he had apparently 

 entertained from his youth, of marrying Mary 

 Tudor. The queen for a moment considered the 

 project of obtaining a dispensation for this union 

 with favour, but the influence of Charles V. pre- 



