Margaret Beaufort

Margaret Beaufort (born May 31, 1443—died June 29, 1509) was the mother of King Henry VII (reigned 1485–1509) of England and founder of St. John’s and Christ’s colleges, Cambridge.

Margaret was the daughter and heir of John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, and great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (a son of King Edward III). In 1455 she married Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond and half brother of King Henry VI (reigned 1422–61 and 1470–71). Their son Henry was born in January 1457, three months after Tudor’s death. A second marriage, to Sir Henry Stafford (from c. 1464 to 1471), was childless. After Stafford’s death and sometime before 1473, she wed Thomas, Lord Stanley (afterward 1st Earl of Derby), who in 1485 helped her son Henry Tudor obtain the throne.

Margaret translated a number of devotional books and was a patron of the English printers William Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde. In 1502 she founded the Lady Margaret professorships of divinity at Oxford and Cambridge, and in 1505 she completed the endowment of Christ’s College. By the provisions of her will, most of her estate was given to endow St. John’s College, which was chartered in 1511.