"In the year 1505 appeared the royal charter for the foundation of Christ's College, wherein after a recital of the facts already mentioned, together with other details, it was notified that King Henry VII., at the representation of his mother and other noble and trustworthy persons--_percarissimæ matris nostræ necnon aliorum nobilium et fide dignorum_--and having regard to her great desire to exalt and increase the Christian faith, her anxiety for her own spiritual welfare, and the sincere love which she had ever borne 'our uncle' (Henry VI.) while he lived--had conceded to her permission to carry into full effect the designs of her illustrious relative; that is to say, to enlarge and endow the aforesaid God's House sufficiently for the reception and support of any number of scholars not exceeding sixty, who should be instructed in grammar or in the other liberal sciences and faculties or in sacred theology."[71] The arrival of the charter was soon followed by the news of the Lady Margaret's noble benefactions--consisting of many manors in the four counties of Cambridge, Norfolk, Leicester, and Essex--which thus exalted the humble and struggling Society of God's House, under its new designation of Christ's College, into the fourth place in respect of revenue, among all the Cambridge colleges. The building of the College seems to have gone on uninterruptedly between 1505 and 1511. The amount spent by the Foundress during her lifetime is not ascertainable; but the cost, as given in the household books of the Lady Margaret after her death, was more than £1000.