Margaret Beaufort: Mother of the Tudor Dynasty (24 page)

Whilst Margaret was, at first, content to benefit an existing college in her patronage of Queen’s, and the university as a whole, with Fisher’s encouragement, she soon decided on a considerably more ambitious scheme. Margaret’s former brother-in-law, Henry VI, had been an enthusiastic patron of learning and founded both Eton College near Windsor and King’s College, Cambridge. He was also involved in the foundation of another college at Cambridge, God’s House, which was founded in 1439 by William Byngham, the parson of St John Zachary of London. Byngham’s petition to the King for a licence for his college survives and sets out his aim that it be used to support scholars of grammar, with lands granted up to a value of £50 a year. Byngham had lofty ideals for his foundation, but in reality, it was never sufficiently endowed. Henry VI showed a personal interest in God’s House. It was originally intended that sixty scholars would reside there, however, due to the college’s poverty, there were never more than four in residence at any time. For Margaret, the college’s Lancastrian links must have been an attraction, and it may well have been Fisher who pointed out that it was ripe for refoundation. At Margaret’s request, on 1 May 1505, Henry VII granted her a licence to expand the college to sixty members, as originally intended. He confirmed that the members of the college were to study the grammatical sciences, other sciences and liberal faculties or holy divinity. It was also confirmed, again at Margaret’s request, that the members of the college were required to pray for Margaret, Henry, his children, Edmund Tudor, Margaret’s parents, Elizabeth of York and Henry VI. In the same document, Henry gave his mother permission to change the name of the foundation to Christ’s College. Margaret was enthusiastic in her support of her new college, and only three days after the licence was granted, she settled the advowson of the church of Malton in Cambridgeshire on Christ’s. She persuaded Henry to grant her the Abbey of St Mary de Pratis at Creyke in Norfolk in 1507, which she immediately assigned with its revenues to her college. She made a number of other grants of property to Christ’s, taking a great personal interest in the foundation. From the first, she reserved rooms at the college for her own use when she was in Cambridge, and there is some evidence that she oversaw the building works at the college. One surviving account, which shows something of Margaret’s strong character, relates that, whilst she was visiting the unfinished college, she looked out of the window to see a student being punished by the dean for his poor scholarship. Margaret leaned out of the window, crying out ‘
lente, lente!
’ (gently, gently!). For the King’s mother, a lazy scholar should not escape punishment entirely, but she was determined that he should not be treated too harshly. Margaret expected her scholars to work hard, as she had high expectations for her college. In her Will, she left her foundation the manor of Malton to ensure that the members of her college had somewhere to stay and continue their work even when there was plague in Cambridge. Margaret was determined that her college should be a credit to her, and she left much of her plate to Christ’s, including two great gilt crucifixes, two chalices and a gilt foot for a cross for an altar. She also appears to have been a regular visitor to her foundation in the last years of her life, with a woman bringing a cake to the college for her in July 1507, something that suggests that the King’s mother was regularly known to be in residence.

Margaret’s interest in Cambridge did not cease with her foundation of Christ’s, and in 1508, Fisher drew her attention to the poor state of the Hospital of St John the Evangelist in Cambridge. In order to dissolve a religious house and refound it as a secular college, it was first necessary to procure the consent of the Bishop of Ely, who, as Margaret’s stepson, immediately complied. She also rapidly obtained Henry VII’s licence, although neither the bishop’s nor Henry’s consent were officially drawn up in Margaret’s lifetime. Margaret intended that her new college would support a master and fifty scholars. When it became clear that she would not live to see her foundation, she detailed her wishes in a codicil to her Will; these were diligently carried out by Fisher and her other executors after her death. That it was Margaret’s contacts and force of character that ensured that she was able to lay the foundations for her second college was clear from the troubles that beset her executors following her death. John Fisher himself recorded,

Ffirst, my Lorde [Bishop] of Ely wiche thene was, albeit that he hadde promysede my lady his assent for the dissolvyng of Saynte Johns housse, wiche then was a religious housse, unto a College of Students, yett because he hadde not sealide, he wolde not performe his promyse; and so delaide the matters a long seasone till at the last we were fayne to agree with hyme by the advyce of my lord of Winchestre to our grete charge. This was the first sore brounte that we hadde, and like to have quailede all the mattere, if it hadde not ben wiselie handelide; for upon this hong all the reste. Yff this hadde ben clerelie revoikede by hyme, we cudde not have done any thing for that College, according to my Ladys entente and wyll.

Fisher’s determination to do Margaret a service, even after her death, drove him on, and he and his fellow executors were beset with further troubles when, due to poor legal advice received, they found that the licence they obtained from the Pope was not fit for purpose and had to send once again to Rome. Finally, they also found they had difficulties from the King, Margaret’s grandson, Henry VIII, who was not over-eager to recognise a verbal promise to his grandmother made by his father. Only through Fisher’s devoted labour was it possible, finally, for St John’s to admit students for the first time, some years after its foundress’s death. Margaret did not live to see her second foundation at Cambridge, but both St John’s and Christ’s remain and stand as memorials to their foundress and her interest in education.

Margaret’s interest in education can also be seen in her patronage of printing and her own translation works. Until the late fifteenth century, it was necessary for all books to be written out by hand, and as a result, they were a rare and expensive commodity. In 1476, William Caxton opened a printing press in the almonry of Westminster Abbey. This was a major turning point in education and allowed for the mass production of books for the first time. Following Henry’s accession, Margaret turned her attention to Caxton’s press, interested in the ability to reach a large audience for the first time, and she became one of his leading patrons. Margaret was a very active patron, advising the printer on what works to publish, and she even provided him with some of her own books for him to copy for his press. Margaret’s support certainly helped Caxton’s works to receive greater attention in court circles, and his gratitude is clear in a number of his dedications to her. In his dedication to
The Hystorye of Kinge Blanchardyne and Queen Eglantyne his Wyfe
, Caxton flattered his patron by calling her Duchess of Somerset, a title that Margaret may have felt she was entitled to as the most senior surviving Beaufort:

Unto the right noble puissant and excellent princess, my redoubted lady, my lady Margaret Duchess of Somerset, mother unto our natural and sovereign lord and most christian King Henry the Seventh, &c. I, William Caxton, his most indign humble subject and little servant, present this little book I late received in French from her good grace, and her commandment withal for to reduce and translate it unto our maternal and English tongue; which book I had long before sold to my said lady, and knew well that the story of it was honest and joyful to all virtuous young noble gentlemen and women, for to read therein for their pastime.

Margaret also requested that Caxton print an English translation of the popular work
The Ladder of Perfection
, and a work called
The Grete Shyppe of Fooles of this Worlde
was printed by the publisher Wynkyn de Worde at her ‘enticement and exhortacion’. Margaret further requested that more personal works be printed, and in 1509, she commanded Wynkyn de Worde to publish the text of John Fisher’s sermons on seven penitential psalms, which she had heard and evidently enjoyed. More poignantly, she asked Fisher to publish the funeral sermon that he preached for her son following his death in 1509. For Margaret, printing was an excellent way to spread information, and she published her own translations of religious works, including
The Mirroure of Golde for the Sinful
Soule and the fourth book of a
Treatise of the Imitation and Following the Blessed Life of our Most Merciful Saviour Christ
.

Margaret came to rely on John Fisher’s advice in the last decade of her life and much of what would become her legacy was suggested by him. She also found herself in a position to benefit her chaplain. Fisher would later claim in a dedication to Henry VII’s councillor, Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester, that the King decided ‘of his own mere notion, without any obsequiousness on my part, without the intercession of any, as he more than once declared to myself, he gave me the Bishopric of Rochester’ and that ‘there are many who believe that his mother, the Countess of Richmond and Derby, that noble and incomparable lady, dear to me by so many titles, obtained the bishopric for me by her prayers to her son. But the facts are entirely different’. In his dedication, Fisher continued that

I do not say this to diminish my debt of gratitude to this most excellent lady. My debts are indeed great. Were there no other besides the great and sincere love she bore me above others, as I know for a certainty, yet what favour could equal such love on the part of such a Princess? But besides her love, she was most munificent towards me. For though she conferred on me no ecclesiastical benefice, she had the desire, if it could be done, to enrich me, which she proved not by words only, but by deeds; among other instances.

Margaret was fond of Fisher and may not have openly shown him just how involved she was in his appointment as Bishop of Rochester in 1504. However, a letter survives from Henry VII to his mother that, although it does not suggest that it was Margaret who requested the appointment, makes it clear that the promotion was hers to veto if she wished:

And I thought I shoulde not offend you, which I will never do willfully, I am well myndit to promote Master Fisher youre Confessor to a Busshopric; and I assure you Madam, for non other cause, but for the grete and singular virtue that I know and se in hym, as well in conyng [cunning] and natural wisdome, and specially for his good and vertuouse lyving and conversation. And by the promotion of suche a man, I know well, it should corage many others to lyve vertuosely, and to take suche wayes as he dothe, which shulde be a good example to many others hereafter. Howbeit without your pleasure knowen I woll not move hym, nor tempt hym therein. And therefor I beseche you that I may know your mynde and pleasure in that behalf, which shall be followed as muche as God will give me grace. I have in my days promoted many a man unadvisedly, and I wolde now make some recompencion to promote some good and vertuose men, which I doubt note shulde best please God, who ever preserve you in good helth and long lyve.

Unbeknownst to Fisher, his promotion was entirely in Margaret’s hands. Even after two decades on the throne, Henry still relied on his mother’s counsel as the most disinterested and loyal of everyone about him.

During the years following Elizabeth of York’s death, Margaret was less often at court. This may, in part, have been due to the fact that, as the acknowledged first woman in the land, she no longer felt the need to make her presence felt constantly in order to maintain her position. She may also have been feeling her age. She remained Henry’s most trusted supporter, however, and continued to assist him in his rule and the best interests of the dynasty they had founded. Henry had made Margaret a grant of Corfe Castle in Dorset early in his reign, and she is recorded to have taken a particular interest in this property, jealously guarding royal rights there. Shortly after receiving the grant, in 1488, she personally ordered an enquiry into what rights belonged to the crown. The enquiry centred on information from as far back as the reign of Richard II, but as far as Margaret was concerned, it had a satisfactory conclusion with it being discovered that ‘the whole isle of Purbyk is a royal warren and pertains to the said castle; also that the whole town of Corf pertains to the said castle’. The meadows and pastures there were found to belong to the King. Margaret was pleased with this result, and it served to increase the revenues that she received from the castle. Later that year, she was also able to persuade her son to supply the lead needed for the repairs and other building work that she was carrying out at the castle. Henry has always suffered from a reputation for greed and miserliness, and whilst this was not entirely justified, he was viewed by his contemporaries as acquisitive. This was a reputation that Margaret also held to some extent, although, to her fury, it was Henry that got the better of her over her manor of Woking in 1503, when he forced her to sign it over to him. Woking had been the main home that Margaret had shared with her third husband, Henry Stafford, and it had always been a particular favourite of hers. She was therefore loath to let it go and argued over the terms of the surrender for some years. She returned to Woking within weeks of her son’s death, demonstrating that the surrender was not voluntary. This was the first evidence of discord between mother and son. With their similar, strong-willed characters, it was always likely that there would be some disputes and further evidence of a quarrel can be seen in 1504, when she was indicted for keeping an illegal number of retainers. Evidence for a dispute between mother and son is, however, minor, and they continued to work as a partnership.

There is some evidence that Henry relied on Margaret to act in a judicial capacity in his kingdom. In 1525, Margaret’s grandson, Henry VIII, received a petition from the people of the north of England complaining that the men in his illegitimate son’s household at Sheriff Hutton Castle in Yorkshire had ‘been governing the north, hearing and determining causes between party and party’. A note on the outer sheet of this petition recorded that