Margaret Beaufort

Margaret Beaufort (1443-1509), prominent member of the English royal house of Lancaster and a patron of learning. In 1455 she married Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond, and it was their son, Henry Tudor, who, in 1485, at the end of the Wars of the Roses, became King Henry VII of England. Subsequently, Margaret was instrumental in uniting the two warring houses of Lancaster and York by helping to arrange a marriage between Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, the eldest surviving daughter of King Edward IV. Margaret Beaufort was a patron of William Caxton, the first English printer. She established divinity professorships at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge; the Lady Margaret professorship at Cambridge is the oldest in the university. In 1505 she founded Christ's College, and in 1508, Saint John's College, both at Cambridge.