In 1506, the king and his mother both visited Cambridge to see the beautiful chapel of King’s College, which was nearly finished.
She did not live to see St. John’s Hospital completely founded (though she obtained consent to have it made into a college), or King’s College finished, but her arms are over the gates of the college, her crest and coronet in the window of the hall; still her name is mentioned every year with the other founders of colleges, and her name is given to buildings and societies and clubs.
In 1509, Henry VII. died, leaving Margaret, “our dearest and most entirely beloved mother,” as he calls her, to choose councillors for her grandson Henry, a boy of eighteen.
At last her strong health began to fail; she had survived parents, husbands, and her only son, but when those around her saw she could not live “it pierced their hearts like a spear.”
“And specially when they saw she must needs depart from them, and they should forgo so gentle a mistress, so tender a lady, then wept they all marvellously, wept her ladies and kinswomen, to whom she was full kind, wept her poor gentlewomen whom she had loved so tenderly before, wept her chaplains and priests, wept her other true and faithful servants.”
She died on June 29th, 1509.
She was buried in Westminster Abbey, in a part called Henry VII.’s Chapel, and a tomb of black marble was erected to her memory. On the top lies a figure of the Lady Margaret in her coronet and robes of state; her head rests on cushions, her feet are supported by a fawn. It is one of the most beautiful monuments in the Abbey, and if you ever go there, look at it and remember the Lady Margaret’s life and work.