Before the buildings of Christ’s College were finished, Fisher won Margaret’s interest in the foundation of another college, St. John’s. At that time, the time which is known as the Renaissance, because art and learning seemed to be born again, men were eager to improve the teaching at the universities, and to make it possible for all who wished to gain knowledge. Fisher was friends with Erasmus and other learned men, and Margaret was willing to help with her money his plans for the advancement of learning, just as she had helped Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde in printing and publishing books. But though, for those days, she was a learned woman herself, she does not seem to have thought that other women should be helped to study, and it was only the learning of men that she aided by her gifts.

Photo: A. E. Walsham.

Christ’s College, Cambridge.

Henry VII. was interested in his mother’s plans and himself visited Cambridge to see her college. He also thought highly of Fisher, and named him Bishop of Rochester. There seems to have been a deep affection between Henry and his mother. Once in writing to her, towards the end of his life, he says that he “is bounden to her for the great and singular motherly love and affection” she has always had for him. In writing to the king, Margaret called him “My own sweet and most dear king and all my worldly joy,” and often addressed him as “my dear heart.” She had the sorrow of seeing him die before her, but she did not live many months after him. She suffered greatly from rheumatic pains in what Bishop Fisher calls “her merciful and loving hands,” so that her ladies and servants wept to see her agony. She died at Westminster and was buried in Henry VII.’s chapel in Westminster Abbey, where a black marble tomb commemorates her memory. Bishop Fisher preached her funeral sermon, and said in it “all England for her death had cause of weeping; the poor creatures that were wont to receive her alms, to whom she was always piteous and merciful, the students of both universities to whom she was a mother, all the learned men of England to whom she was a very patroness, all the good religious men and women, whom she so often was wont to visit and comfort.” Margaret’s plans for the foundation of St. John’s College were not finished at her death, and Wolsey, the favourite of her grandson Henry VIII., tried to get her lands for other purposes. Fisher’s efforts succeeded in keeping a great deal for St. John’s, though not so much as Margaret had meant to give. She left all her jewels, books, vestments, plate, and altar cloths to her two colleges. She had been specially fond of fine goldsmith’s work, and many beautiful things had been made for her, adorned with her own emblem, a daisy, or with the rose and the portcullis, which through her descent from the Lancaster and Beaufort families became the Tudor emblems. Besides her colleges, she founded several almshouses, and a school at Wimborne, where her parents were buried. She used her great possessions as a trust which she held for the good of the country, and for herself sought no luxury or display, being, as Bishop Fisher says in his sermon, “temperate in meats and drinks, eschewing banquets and keeping fast days.”

Tudor Rose (white and red).
From the gates of the Chapel of Henry VII.

V
RACHEL, LADY RUSSELL

Rachel Wriothesley was the daughter of the Earl of Southampton and a French Huguenot lady whom he had married when travelling in France, and who was renowned for her beauty and virtue. Rachel was born in 1636. She never knew her mother, who died when she was an infant. Her father married again, and we know nothing about her relations with her stepmother, but we know that she dearly loved her sisters, and was very good friends with her stepsister. England was passing through troublous times during her childhood on account of the disputes between Charles I. and his Parliament. Lord Southampton was a sensible, moderate man, and he could not approve of the king’s doings, but he remained true to him and took his side when the civil war broke out. When the terrible end came and Charles I. was beheaded in 1649, Southampton got permission to watch by the king’s body during the night after the execution. He is reported to have told a friend that, whilst he was watching, at about two o’clock in the morning, he heard a step on the stair and a man entered, muffled in a cloak, and stood by the body. He heard him sigh, “Cruel necessity,” and knew by the voice that it was Cromwell.

Southampton’s moderation was so well known that, though he had been the king’s friend, the Parliament did not seize his lands, and he was suffered to live quietly on one of his estates in Hampshire. Rachel was then about thirteen years old and must have benefited from the companionship of her father during these quiet years. We know nothing of her education, and she does not seem in after life to have possessed any learning; but no doubt it was from her father she gained the good sense and the deep religious faith which distinguished her through life. She was an heiress since her father had no son, and only two of his other daughters survived him. As was the custom in those days, a suitable marriage was soon arranged for her. She was only seventeen when she married Lord Vaughan, who died four years afterwards. All that is known of their married life is that Lady Rachel behaved so as to win the love of her husband’s family, who always remained her friends. When her husband died, she went to live in Hampshire with her sister Elizabeth, to whom she was deeply attached. Each of the sisters possessed a fine place in Hampshire, and when Elizabeth died both these places, Tichfield and Stratton, belonged to Rachel. Her father had lived to see the restoration of Charles II. and to be one of his first ministers, but he was now dead and Rachel was completely her own mistress. There was no one to arrange a marriage for her, and she was able to choose for herself a man whom she deeply loved. She had known William Russell, the younger son of the Duke of Bedford, for two years before they were married. He had shown his devotion to her for some time, but perhaps because he was a younger son and she was an heiress, he hesitated at first to ask her to be his wife. They were married at last in 1669, and fourteen years of perfect happiness began for Rachel. The only real sorrow that came to her was the death of her sister, whom she described as “a delicious friend.” Her other sorrows were her brief separations from her husband when he had to visit his father at Woburn.