This College was founded by Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester and Lord Privy Seal to Kings Henry VII. and VIII., in the year 1516. For the life of Foxe, which is full of interest, and thoroughly typical of the career of a statesman-ecclesiastic of those times, I must refer the reader to my article on Richard Foxe in the _Dictionary of National Biography_.[227] Foxe had, in early life, linked his fortunes with those of Henry VII., then Earl of Richmond, while in exile in France; and, after the battle of Bosworth Field (22nd August, 1485), he became, in rapid succession, Principal Secretary of State, Lord Privy Seal, and Bishop of Exeter. He was subsequently translated to Bath and Wells (1491-2), Durham (1494), and Winchester (1501), then the wealthiest See in England. The principal event in his life (at least in its far-reaching consequences) was his negotiation, while Bishop of Durham, of the marriage between James IV. of Scotland and the Princess Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII., which resulted, a century later, in the permanent union of the English and Scottish crowns under James VI. It is probable that Foxe, who, as we learn from his woodwork in the banqueting-hall of Durham Castle, had, so early as 1499, adopted, as his device, the pelican feeding her young, was early inspired with the idea of founding some important educational institution for the benefit of the Church. This idea, shortly before the foundation of his present College, had taken the shape of a house in Oxford for the reception of young monks from St. Swithin’s Priory in Winchester while attending academical lectures and disputations in Oxford. There were other such houses in Oxford, such as Canterbury College, Durham College,[228] and the picturesque staircases, connected with various Benedictine monasteries, still standing in Worcester College. But his friend, Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter, more prescient than himself, already foresaw the fall of the monasteries and, with them, of their academical dependencies in Oxford. “What, my Lord,” Oldham is represented as saying by John Hooker, _alias_ Vowell (see _Holinshed’s Chronicles_), “shall we build houses and provide livelihoods for a company of bussing[229] monks, whose end and fall we ourselves may live to see; no, no, it is more meet a great deal that we should have care to provide for the increase of learning, and for such as who by their learning shall do good in the Church and commonwealth.” Thus Foxe’s benefaction (to which Oldham himself liberally contributed, as did also the founder’s steward, William Frost, and other of his friends) took the more common form of a College for the education of the secular clergy. A site was purchased between Merton and St. Frideswide’s (the monastery subsequently converted into, first, Cardinal College, and then Christ Church), the land being acquired mainly from Merton and St. Frideswide’s, though a small portion was also bought from the nuns of Godstow.