Margaret Beaufort: Mother of the Tudor Dynasty (23 page)

Oxford University first came to Margaret’s attention in 1493 when it wrote to Reginald Bray, who had remained associated with her, to offer him the office of steward of the university. He accepted the post and gave the university a donation of 40 marks to be used towards a church in the city. His interest in Oxford brought it to Margaret’s attention, and in 1497, the university was able to write to her in the most fulsome terms, praising her generosity:

Those most respected kings, prelates, and generals, and men of almost every rank of society have been solicitous for our welfare and the progress of education; but it has remained for one princess, o rank most exalted and of character divine, to do that which none have done before. Nothing can be nobler than to provide, as you have done, unasked, for the teaching of theology. This is the subject we value, relish, and love above all others; and we cannot but reckon you among the founders of our University, and deserving at our hands the same thanks, and the same prayers.

The letter refers to a lectureship in theology that Margaret founded at Oxford through letters patent granted in December 1496. At the same time, she also founded a similar lectureship at Cambridge.

Around 1495, Margaret met a cleric, John Fisher, who was visiting the court at Greenwich. Fisher had been born in 1459 in Yorkshire and came from a family of reasonably well off merchants. From his early childhood, it was recognised that he was intellectually able, and his mother, who was widowed whilst her son was young, ensured that he was well educated. As he grew, his mother continued to support his academic career, and seeing that he was ‘naturally indowed with a sober and deep witt, a perfect and stedfast memorie, and a will prompt & forward to lerne’, she decided to send him to Cambridge University. He was an allrounder and one of the best-educated men of his day, with one early
Life of Fisher
declaring that ‘in fewe yeres he became singulerly well learned, as well in humanitie, as in logicke; philosophie and other sciences: not ignorant, but well acquainted, with the greeke and hebrew tonges which were then verie straungers in this land’. He took his degree in 1488 and completed a Masters degree the following year. He remained for some years at Cambridge, taking holy orders, as well as becoming a doctor of divinity. Around the time that Fisher became a Proctor of the University, his reputation came to Margaret’s attention, and she specifically sought him out when he visited court, as the
Life of Fisher
comments:

At length his name grewe so famous, that, passinge the bondes of the vniversitie, it spred over all the Realme, in so much as the noble and vertuous ladie, Margaret, Countesse of Richmond and Darbie, mother to the wise and sage prince Kinge Henrie the viith, hearinge of his great vertue and learninge, ceased not till she had procured him out of the vniversitie to her service, by meane wherof he resigned the maistership of Michaell house [a Cambridge college that was dissolved in 1546] and lefte the vniversitie for that time. After he had a space remayned with this noble ladie, she perceived his vertue and good lyfe farr to exceed the fame that before she heard of him, and thervpon soone after made him her ghostly father: wherin after he was a while established, he ordered himselfe so discretly, so temperatly and so wysely, that both she and all her familie [i.e., household] were governed by his high wisdome and discretion.

Margaret’s meeting with Fisher marked the start of a long-standing association in which the two worked closely together. She had always had a deep and sincere interest in religion, and Fisher, who was both highly educated and had a reputation for asceticism, was the perfect candidate for her chaplain. Once established as a member of her household, Fisher persuaded Margaret that her charitable works, which were already extensive and included repairing bridges and roads, making payments to poor women to allow them to marry, and paying the fines of prisoners, would be better directed towards his own chief interest: Cambridge University.

A surviving letter from Oxford University to ‘the Lady Margaret’ dating from 1498 survives. No further details of the intended recipient are given, but Margaret was certainly the most prominent lady of her name in England and this, coupled with the fact that the addressee was a patron of the university, suggests that it was intended for Margaret. The letter is interesting, as it demonstrates that the university were concerned about losing Margaret’s favour. It begins ‘that a report should have been made to you, calculated to diminish that generous favour you have hitherto shown us, is a bitter vexation; the more so that it is without foundation’. The report that had reached Margaret was made by one John Roys, an ‘inveterate enemy’ of the university, and concerned a scandal over the imprisonment of a prostitute in the city. The fact that the university felt the need to write to Margaret to explain itself suggests that they were aware that she no longer looked quite as favourably on them as before, something that may well have been due to Fisher’s influence.

In spite of this, the university continued to correspond with Margaret and petition her for support for some time. In 1500, for example, her lectureship in theology fell vacant, and the university wrote to inform her of the name of the new holder. The selected candidate pleased Margaret, no doubt to the university’s relief, and she wrote back to them:

And this present day have recevyd your right kinde lettres and lovinge tokins by our welbeloved Thomas Pantre, oon of your bedells; for the whiche we thank you in owre harty wise; Wherby we perceyve ye have electe and chosen oon m. Rooper, doctor of divinite, to rede owre lecture there; whereof we be right gladde, and trust with godd’s mercy it shalbe to the greate honour and weal of your said Universite; aswele to thyncrease of vertu as lernyng off Students with in the same, whiche we right specially tender, and shalbe gladde to further at altymes to the best we can.

Margaret was also not above asking for favours, and in that same year, she wrote to the university, requesting an appointment there for one Richard Wootton, who had been recommended to her by Richard Fitzjames, Bishop of Rochester, a former vice-chancellor of the university:

Trusty and welbelovyd, we grete you wele; and understonde the Rowme of gentilmen bedell in divinite within youre universite is now voide by deceasse of your late office in the same; wherunto ye in breve tyme intende to electe soome honest and hable person. We specially tendering thonnoure and thincrease of lernyng in divinite, and be credybly enformed by the right reverent fader in god, the bysschopp of Rochestre, and certain other whiche be verray lovers of the said faculte, that one Rychard Wotton is a right hable and convenient person for the said office, Desire therfore and pray you so to owe youre good favores unto hym as rather for oure sake he may be proferryd to the said Rome. Wherby ye schall not oonly do a thing for the grete honowre and weale of youre said universite but also unto us full Singuler plesur. Yeven under signet at the manour of Buckdoone, the xxiii day of Auguste.

Anxious to please Margaret, the university was only too happy to oblige, responding quickly to tell her that ‘on receipt of your letter, we almost unanimously elected the candidate you recommended for the office of bedell in Divinity’. They once again made a plea for her aid, pointedly adding that, by making the appointment requested, ‘we have reason to fear that we have incurred the displeasure of the bishop of Lincoln, our Chancellor; we entreat you, therefore, to defend us if any trouble comes, for to support his anger will be beyond our strength’. Margaret’s response to this does not survive. Another letter of hers to the university is extant, in which she asked that the university dispense with its residency requirements for one of its students, Maurice Westbury, of whom she was a patron. As an incentive, the King’s mother added that ‘and ye thus doing shal have us youre good lady in any thing reasonable that ye shal desire of us, concernyng the weal of you or the saide Universite hereafter’. With Fisher’s increasing influence over Margaret changing her focus to Cambridge, Oxford was fighting a losing battle in trying to secure her patronage, although a letter survives as late as 1502 that was a clear attempt to secure further funding, through blatant flattery, from the King’s mother:

How great and unremitting has been your benevolent and watchful solicitude for our advancement, it were difficult to express; and if our former benefactors are constantly commemorated, surely never-ceasing thanks are due to you for your promise to endow a theological lecture here, and the fulfilment of that promise.

Margaret had originally intended to continue benefitting both universities and, in the latter years of the fifteenth century, she began to fund lecturers at both universities as part of her personal expenses. However, when, in 1505, she decided to support a preachership at a university, requiring the holder to preach six sermons a year, she directed her generosity at Cambridge alone. Margaret’s growing Cambridge bias increased in 1501, when Fisher was elected as vice-chancellor of the university. He was appointed chancellor in 1504, remaining in office throughout the rest of Margaret’s life and securing an appointment of the office for life in 1514.

As well as providing funds for lectureships and a preachership, Margaret turned her attentions towards the Cambridge colleges themselves. Her ancestress, Philippa of Hainault, the queen of Edward III, had begun a lasting association between queenship and learning when she had founded Queen’s College at Oxford in the fourteenth century. This was followed, in the mid-fifteenth century, by Margaret of Anjou, the queen of Henry VI, founding Queen’s College at Cambridge. Margaret Beaufort’s sometime co-conspirator and rival, Elizabeth Woodville, had taken a great interest in Margaret of Anjou’s college, and in 1465, she had been granted a licence by her husband to patronise the college. Elizabeth’s support had been so generous that the college flatteringly referred to her as its true founder in a number of documents. It seems likely that Elizabeth, whose marriage had caused such a scandal and who had always been at pains to demonstrate her queenship, had sought to use her patronage of the college as a way of enforcing and legitimising her position. Margaret Beaufort’s own interest in the college, which began after Elizabeth of York’s death when Margaret was the highest-ranking woman in England and, in many respects, a queen in all but name, may have been for a similar reason: seeking to demonstrate her queenly rank to the world.

After Elizabeth’s death, Margaret fulfilled the function of the queen towards Queen’s College, Cambridge, and she interested herself in its management. She was also responsible, in 1505, for persuading her great-nephew and former ward, the Duke of Buckingham, to make a grant to the college. By an indenture, he ‘bestowed on the college, (for his safe state while living, and for the good of the souls of his ancestors and of his own soul after his death,) at the instance of the most excellent princess Margaret, countess of Richmond and Derby, the king’s mother, 31 acres of meadow land in Essex, near Bumpstead Heylon’. Almost certainly as a mark of respect to Margaret and in an attempt to secure further patronage, the college appointed Fisher as its master in 1505. Margaret made a personal visit to Cambridge in 1505, where she was received with much honour at the college. This visit paved the way for Henry VII’s own successful visit in 1506, when Fisher was able to persuade the King to donate funds to complete the building work at King’s College Chapel. Margaret accompanied her son on this visit, and it was around this time that her stepson, James Stanley, was made Bishop of Ely (whose diocese included Cambridge), presumably at his stepmother’s request. Margaret is also recorded to have taken an interest in Corpus Christi College at Cambridge when she attempted to secure a fellowship there for a scholar named Thomas Maunfeld, although it appears that she was not successful in this appeal.

By the early years of the sixteenth century, Margaret had become a figure of major importance to Cambridge, and the university asked her to arbitrate in a dispute between it and the town:

Most noble and excellent princes our special good and gracious lady, humbly we recommend us to your highness shewing that notwythstonding the composicion devised and ordaynde by your most wyse concayle betwen thys our soverayn lorde the kyngs universite and yours and the mayer and the burgeysys of Cambryg for unite [unity] and peas [peace] to be had finally between us and them and the mor restfulnes of our mynds to study to the supporting of crists ffaythe, they nothyng, as yt semyth, regardyng your blessed mynd and gret labours ne the high pleasure of Allmighty God in thys behalf dayly cessyth nott to renew our Trobles, insomuche that refusing and willing utterly the cesse of justice among us ne acceptyng our vicechancellor for their juge in a personall action agenste them comensed by certayne scholars the parte playntife, they now of late before ony sentence definitive or any other just cause of complaynte mynystered by us unto them hath uncharytably to the vexacyon of the sayd scolers not only procuryd a prevy seale, but hath sued them with oon of our bedellys oonly for doyng of hys office at the commyn lawe to the poynte of owtlawry, plainly infringing the sayd composicion not in thys alone but in other artycles, as now we have by a specyall byll remembered and thys berar can more largely declare.

The university, well aware of Margaret’s interest in learning, begged her to intervene, insisting that, otherwise, those scholars who were required to present themselves in court to answer the townsmen’s cases would fail to satisfy the residency requirements of their degrees and so ‘shal be compellyd by long tarryng owt not only to lese [lose] their lerning, but also ther place, exhibicion and living, and as we soe fere thys the lay menys audacyte not repressed shal be herafter owr gret decay’. Margaret’s reply to the university’s appeal does not survive, but she responded favourably, with the university again writing to her to commend her as ‘owrer speciall good lady and singular benefactrice’. Margaret evidently told the university to draw up a list of articles setting out areas of dispute with the townsmen so that she could ‘se good direction and dew reformacion be made’. She listened to what the arbitrators had to say, before affixing her seal to an agreement that was reached on 11 July 1502. A list of thirty articles were finalised in May the following year, and it appears that Margaret, who, on occasion, acted in a judicial capacity on behalf of her son, was happy to intervene on behalf of the university.