His eldest brother John de la Pole, 1st Earl of Lincoln (c. 1464 – 1487), may have been named heir to the throne by his maternal uncle, Richard III of England, who gave him a pension and the reversion of the estates of Lady Margaret Beaufort.

His estates suffered under the attainder of his brother, and he was compelled to pay large sums to Henry VII for the recovery of part of the forfeited lands, and also to exchange his title of duke for that of earl.

In 1501 he sought out Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, in Tyrol and received from him a promise of substantial assistance in case of an attempt on the English crown.

Presently Suffolk fell into the hands of Philip I of Castile, who imprisoned him at Namur and in 1506 surrendered him to Henry VII, on condition that his life was spared.

[1] Richard de la Pole joined Edmund abroad in 1504, and remained at Aix-la-Chapelle as surety for his elder brother's debts.

The creditors threatened to surrender him to Henry VII but, more fortunate than his brother, he found a safe refuge at Buda with King Ladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary.

[1] He was excluded from the general pardon proclaimed at the accession of Henry VIII, and when Louis XII of France went to war with the Kingdom of England in 1512, he recognised Edmund's pretensions to the English crown and gave Richard a command in the French army.

Richard was required to leave France, and he established himself at Metz, in Lorraine, and built a palace at La Haute Pierre, near St.

Richard de la Pole had numerous interviews with King Francis I of France, and in 1523 he was permitted, in concert with John Stewart, 2nd Duke of Albany, the Scottish regent, to arrange an invasion of England, which was never carried out.