1509.

On the 29th of June, died Margaret Countess of Richmond and Derby, so often mentioned as a benefactress to the University. She had taken some steps to procure the dissolution of St. John's Hospital, with a view to convert it into a College, but died before this could be effected. However, by a codicil to her will, made shortly previously to her death, she declared her intention to dissolve the Hospital, and to alter and found thereof a College of secular persons, that is to say, a master and fifty scholars, with divers servants, and new to build the said College, and sufficiently to endow the same with lands and tenements after the manner and form of other Colleges in Cambridge, and to furnish the same as well in the chapel, library, pantry, and kitchen, with books and all other things necessary for the same; and to the performance thereof, she willed that her executors should take the issues, revenues, and profits of her enfeoffed lands in Devonshire, Somersetshire, Northamtonshire, &c.; and that with the revenues coming of the said lands, that the said late hospital should be made clear of all old debts duly proved, and also that the lands and tenements to the same late hospital belonging should be sufficiently repaired and maintained, and she gave to the College a moiety of her plate jewels, vestments, altar-cloths, books, hangings, and other necessaries belonging to her chapel.