BEAUFORT, LADY MARGARET
(1443-1509)
The mother of the first Tudor king of England, Henry VII. She was descended from King Edward III and in 1455 married Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond. John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, became her spiritual adviser and encouraged her to use her wealth to support education. She endowed professorships in theology at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities and in 1503 endowed a university preachership at Cambridge. Bishop Fisher persuaded her to give much of her estate to Cambridge, where she founded Christ's College (1505) and endowed St. John's College (1511).