Refusing to allow her diminished status to negatively affect her son, Margaret married for one final time to Lord Thomas Stanley in the summer of 1472. Margaret flouted the preconceived notions of men dictating her life by instigating and securing this advantageous match. A clever pairing, the marriage was another strategic political alliance, granting Stanley access to Margaret’s vast lands and fortunes while awarding Margaret with another politically safe husband. Stanley was famous for never fighting in one battle of the Wars of the Roses. His vast possession of land, wealth and armies, however, made his favor important to both the Yorkist and Lancastrian causes. Margaret once again secured her and Henry’s relative safety with her powerful new husband. Erasmus, in writing about his friend the Bishop, Saint John Fisher, praised Margaret's support of religious institutions and the Bishop, [33] further attesting the simultaneously pragmatic and charitable nature testified in the funerary sermon dedicated by the Bishop himself, as laid out in a following section.

Jones & Underwood, Michael & Malcolm (1985). "LADY MARGARET BEAUFORT". History Today. 35: 23 – via JSTOR. Gristwood, Sarah (2013). Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses. New York: Basic Books. p.48.In 1497 she announced her intention to build a free school for the general public of Wimborne. Following her death in 1509, Wimborne Grammar School came into existence, to become Queen Elizabeth's School, Wimborne Minster. [69] The Great Gate of St. John's College, Cambridge Tallis, Nicola (2020). Uncrowned Queen: The Fateful Life of Margaret Beaufort, Tudor Matriarch. London: Michael O'Mara Books Limited. p.58. ISBN 978-1-78929-258-9.

Meanwhile, his mother was stripped of all her titles and estates by Richard and forced into house imprisonment at her husband’s home. A total ban was placed on any communication with her son in France. Upon her first birthday, the king broke the arrangement with Margaret's father and granted the wardship of her extensive lands to William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, although Margaret herself remained in the custody of her mother. Margaret's mother was pregnant at the time of Somerset's death, but the child did not survive and Margaret remained the sole heir. Although she was her father's only legitimate child, Margaret had two maternal half-brothers and three maternal half-sisters from her mother's first marriage whom she supported after her son's accession to the throne. [8] Monumental brass of Edmund Tudor, St David's Cathedral, Pembrokeshire She is credited with the establishment of two prominent Cambridge colleges, founding Christ's College in 1505 and beginning the development of St John's College, which was completed posthumously by her executors in 1511. [2] [3] Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, a nineteenth-century foundation named after her was the first Oxford college to admit women. [4] Origins [ edit ] Presentation miniature of Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers, one of the first books in the English language, printed by William Caxton. The miniature depicts Anthony Woodville presenting the book to Edward IV, accompanied by his wife Elizabeth Woodville, his son Edward, Prince of Wales and his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester Yes, because you think God wants your son to be King of England. I don’t think your God has ever advised you otherwise. You hear only what you want. He only ever commands your preferences.’With Richard III having died in combat, all that was left was for Henry Tudor to take his place on the throne.