MARGARET,

COUNTESS OF RICHMOND AND DERBY 2,

THE mother of Henry the seventh, to whom she seems to have willingly ceded her no right to the crown, while she employed herself in founding colleges3, and in acts of more real devotion and goodness than generally attend so much superstition. While she was yet young, and a rich heiress, the great duke of Suffolk*, minister to Henry the sixth, or rather to queen Margaret, solicited her in marriage for his son, though the king himself wooed her for his halfbrother Edmund. On so nice a point, the good young lady advised with an elderly gentlewoman,

As a thick quarto volume has been published within these few years, of such illustrious women as have contributed to the republic of letters, I shall be very brief on this head, having little to add to what that author has said.

3 [Mr. Ballard has printed a copy of Latin verses, which contain an accurate account of her collegiate foundations. See Memoirs, p. 21. Mr. Gyll, in a manuscript note, says she was a justice of peace.]

4

* [Duke of Bokingham, MS. coll. Jo. Funeral Sermon in Marg. 8. Gyll.]

* Memoirs of several Ladies of Great Britain who have been celebrated for their Writings, &c. by George Ballard, 1752.

VOL. I.

who thinking it too great a decision to take upon herself, recommended her to St. Nicholas, who, whipping on some episcopal robes, appeared to her, and declared in favour of Edmund. The old gentlewoman, I suppose, was dead, and St. Nicholas out of the way; for we hear nothing of the lady Margaret consulting either of them on the choice of two other husbands after the death of earl Edmund, by whom she had king Henry. Sir Henry Stafford, the second, bequeathed to his son-in-law "a trappur of four new horse harnish of velvet;" and his mother, the duchess of Buckingham, in consideration of lady Margaret's great affection for literature, gave her the following legacy by her will: "To my daughter Richmond, a book of English, being a legend of saints; a book of French, called Lucun; another book of French of the epistles and gospels; and a primmer with clasps of silver gilt, covered with purple velvet 5."

Her virtues are exceedingly celebrated: "Her humility was such that she would often say, on condition that the princes of Christendom would combine themselves and march against the common enemy the Turks, she would most willingly attend them, and be their laundress in the

camp"." And for her chastity, the rev. Mr. Baker, who republished bishop Fisher's funeral sermon on her, informs us, "that, in her last husband's days, she obtained a license of him to live chaste, whereupon she took upon her the vow of celibacy;" a boon as seldom requested, I believe, of a third husband, as it probably would be easily granted. This princess published

"The Mirroure of Golde for the sinfull Soule, translated from a French translation of a Book called, Speculum aureum Peccatorum.” Emprynted at London, in Flet-strete, at the signe of St. George, by Richard Pynson, 4to. with cuts on vellum 7.

"Translation of the fourth Book of Dr. J. Gerson's Treatise of the Imitation and following the blessed Life of our most merciful Saviour. Christ;"

* Camden's Remains, p. 271, edit. 1651.

7 Ballard, p. 16. [The copy so printed was in the possession of Mr. West.]

[Herbert has given the title and colophon of this book from a copy in his own possession: "Here beginethe the forthe boke of the folowinge Jesu Cryst, and of the contēpnīge of the world. Inprinted at the cōmaudement of the most excellent pryncess Margarete, moder vnto our souereyne lorde kinge Henry the VII. coūtes of Richemout and Darby. And by the same prynces it was translated out of Frenche into Englisshe in

printed at the end of Dr. William Atkinson's English translation of the three first books,

1504.

"A letter to her son is printed in Howard's Collection of Letters "."

She also, by her son's command and authority," made the orders (yet extant) for great estates of ladies and noblewomen, for their precedence, attires, and wearing of barbes at funerals, over the chin and under the same."

[This illustrious lady was the sole daughter of John Beaufort, duke of Somerset, the grandson of John of Gaunt, who has met with a literary champion in Mr. Godwin3. Caxton dedicated the "Hystorye of Kynge Blandhardyne and Queen Eglantyne," to this princess by the title of duchesse of Somercete; "but this," says Herbert, "must be a mere compliment of Mr. Caxton's, as I don't recollect her being called so any where else." The honour of duchess of Somerset seems to have been granted to descend only by male

fourme and maner ensuinge: the yere of our Lord God MI.D.IIII." Contains eighteen leaves. Colophon: "Thus endeth the forth boke folowinge Jesu Cryst, and the contempnyinge of the worlde." Imp. by Pinson, in 4to.]

9 Ballard, p. 155.

• Ballard and Sandford.

3 Life of Chaucer.