Great ladies usually recognized their duties among the poor, not only by giving doles, but by founding almshouses. There were, probably, not many who actually maintained a number of poor within their own walls like Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond. This celebrated lady used to maintain twelve poor people under her roof when she retired to her manor of Woking, where Dr. John Fisher acted as her confessor and almoner. Nearly every lady of distinction did something of a permanent nature for the relief of the poor. The famous Bess of Hardwick, in the midst of her building of palaces, did not forget to erect and liberally endow an almshouse for the poor at Derby. The Countess of Pembroke not only built an almshouse, but procured a patent by which it was turned into a corporation. Various are the charities bequeathed by noble ladies in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries for the relief of the poor. Lady Gresham in 1560 left tenements in the city, the rents of which were to be used for the poor, partly in money and partly in coals. Mrs. Frances Clark left £200 to the Skinners’ Company to pay £10 a year for the poor of St. Thomas’s, Southwark. Dame Isabell Gray, of Ogle Castle, Northumberland, left a sum of money for the poor, to be given at the day of her burial. Instances might be multiplied, such as the bequest of Lady Middleton in 1645, of Viscountess Conway in 1637, of Lady Mico in 1670, of Mrs. Ridley in 1716. Money that is now given to societies was then left to individuals. The care of the poor from the days of Dorcas downwards has always been deemed women’s special work, but it has been largely controlled by the church. In olden times a great lady would choose for her almoner a monk, or at least a priest. The Church has endeavoured to maintain its authority in this respect down to the present day. A large portion of the ancient endowments and funds for the relief of the poor is in its hands. Great ladies and women in all ranks still frequently allow their charities to be filtered through the medium of the Church. The visiting of the poor is carried on under ecclesiastical guidance. The Church in modern times has striven to become the fountain and head of all benevolence, and, as a great organized institution, discourages outside efforts. Women in country districts dispense most of their charity under the direction of the priest, except where there happens to be a great lady who chooses to assert her independence, and is powerful enough to act alone.