It will be seen that the university owes most to Cambridge itself and East Anglia; and next to two counties which have always been in strict relation to it, Yorkshire and Essex. Two of the founders of colleges were French. Both Welsh and Irish names have been from the first represented, but Cambridge owes nothing to Scotland.[251] Even as late as 1535 when Henry issued the royal injunctions to the university during the chancellorship of Cromwell, there were students from every diocese and district of England, and from Wales and Ireland, at Cambridge, but Scotland is not mentioned.[252] Of the 4 countesses who founded colleges, one was twice married to Irishmen, and two married Welshmen.
Of the 14 (non-royal) men founders (including the third Duke of Buckingham and Fisher) 5 were East Anglian (3 Cambridgeshire), 3 were East-Saxons, 3 Yorkshiremen, one a Northamptonshire man, and one came from Staffordshire. To Beverley the university owes Fisher and Alcock, to Chelmsford Badew and Mildmay, to Norwich Bateman and Caius.
Of the 6 women founders, two were French (Chatillon and Queen Margaret) one was of French extraction (Sidney), the Clares were Normans, Elizabeth Clare and Chatillon were Plantagenets through Henry III. and Edward, Margaret Beaufort and Buckingham by descent from Edward III.; Elizabeth Woodville was half French through her mother Jaquetta of Luxembourg, daughter of Peter Comte de Saint-Paul. Thus, curiously enough, two of the women founders hailed from Anjou (Margaret and Frances Sidney) and two from Saint-Paul (Chatillon and Elizabeth Woodville).
The colleges they founded favoured different provinces.
Scope of their foundations.
Marie Valence, wished French fellows to be preferred to others of equal merits, and, failing these, scholars from the college rectories.[253]
Gonville wished to benefit East Anglian clergy.
Bateman wished chiefly to benefit clergy of the diocese of Norwich.
Henry VI. decided that failing scholars from the parishes of Eton or King’s, Buckinghamshire and Cambridgeshire should have the preference.
Margaret of Anjou’s college was, by Andrew Doket, allied with the Cambridge Greyfriars.