Margaret Beaufort  was the mother of Henry VII . She was a descendant of Edward III through John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and his third wife Katherine Swynford. Margaret was betrothed when very young to John de la Pole, but the marriage never took place. Her first husband was Edmund Tudor (half brother of Henry VI), the son of Katherine of Valois (widow of Henry V) and Owen Tudor, a Welsh squire. Edmund died in November 1456 and a few months later the 13-year-old Margaret gave birth to his posthumous son - the future Henry VII.

As a wealthy heiress and young widow, Margaret remarried shortly after Henry's birth. Leaving her son in Wales with his uncle Jasper Tudor. Margaret went to England to marry Henry Stafford, the younger brother of the Duke of Buckingham.

After Stafford's death, Margaret married, for a third time, Thomas, Lord Stanley. She persuaded her husband to support her son's cause at the Battle of Bosworth Field, which ended in Henry's victory.

During her son's reign, Margaret built a fine estate at Collyweston and was the patron of educational and religious foundations. Her chaplain John Fisher said in her funeral oration, "All England had cause to mourn her death. The poor would miss her bounteous alms: the students of both universities, "to whom she was as a moder", and the learned her patronage. She was a generous patron of learning, establishing Readerships (now Professorships) in Divinity at Oxford and Cambridge. "God's House" at Cambridge was re- founded as Christ's College. St. John's College, Cambridge, was also established, in the place of the ancient foundation of St. John's Hospital, by provision made in her will.

She translated into English the fourth book of the "Imitation of Christ" and "The Mirroure of Golde for the sinful soule". William Caxton was commissioned by Margaret Beaufort to translate and print the romance Blanchardyn and Eglantine (1489).

Margaret died just a few months after Henry VII and is buried in a fine tomb in Westminster Abbey near her son and his wife and many of her descendents.