The Cambridge College of Saint John the Evangelist - a brief history

• The Cambridge college of Saint John the Evangelist owes its existence, from 1511, to Lady Margaret Beaufort, great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, wife of Edmund Tudor, mother to Henry VII and finally grandmother to Henry VIII. Henry VII, also known as Henry Tudor, began the Tudor dynasty in 1485 when he defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth, and Henry VIII was later to found Trinity College, Cambridge in 1546. In her life, Lady Margaret translated a number of devotional books and was a patron of the English printers William Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde, she founded the Lady Margaret professorships of divinity at both Oxford and Cambridge in 1502.

• Paradoxically Margaret died in 1509, the year her grandson succeeded her son, and more seriously for the college, a lengthy two years before it was to be built. Indeed the college would have never seen the daylight but for the sheer persistence and dedication of one remarkable man by the name of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, also confessor and adviser to Lady Margaret. Having refounded God's House as Christ's college earlier in 1505, Lady Margaret was not so keen to establish another college in Cambridge. Bishop Fisher however, a firm believer in religious education, persuaded her otherwise, though not until the final moments of her life and not entirely without the help of his position. Unfortunately, the part of her will concerning the foundation of a new college was rather ineffectual (as it was done by way of codicil and she did not seal it), leaving Bishop Fisher as the sole witness. Since the provision for a college would incur significant outlay, there was furious resistance from those who stood to inherit. The death of King Henry VII followed by the accession of Henry VIII, both in the same year of 1509, added to the confusion. The matter went to Archbishop of Canterbury, and was eventually judged in Fisher's favour, partly due to the fact that he swore to the truth as a respected bishop. Much hassle related to the site of the college followed and probably would not have been overcome without the help of two bulls from Pope Julius II.

• With the necessary approval from the Pope, the King and the Bishop of Ely, the Charter of the College was finally granted on 9th April 1511.

• The site of the college was chosen by Bishop Fisher, to be the Hospital of St John, then a run down monastic house operated by monks. However the Hospital existed ever since early thirteenth century when the earliest Cambridge Univeristy merely consisted of a few scholars moving from Oxford and Paris, often lacking in the way of comfortable accomadation. In early 1280s when the Hospital was in better shape, Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, tried to introduce scholars into this foundation, but the monks and the academics did not get on together, and the latter moved down the road to found Cambridge's first college, Peterhouse in 1284.

• Bishop John Fisher and Lady Margaret Beaufort remain two most important benefactors in the college history.