Upon the death of Simon de St. Liz, Earl of Huntingdon and Northampton, his elder son, Simon, should have succeeded to both dignities, but it appears he only inherited the former. The Earldom of Huntingdon being assumed by David, son of Malcolm III, King of Scotland, who had married the deceased earl's widow, the Countess Maud, under the especial sanction of King Henry I. This nobleman succeeded to the Scottish throne, on the decease of Alexander, his elder brother, in 1124; and invading England, was met upon the border by King Stephen, when their differences were amicably adjusted; and Henry of Scotland, son of the said David, King of Scotland, on condition of swearing allegiance to Stephen, had the Earldom and honor of Huntingdon, with the borough of Doncaster and Carlisle as an augmentation thereof. He married Ada Warren, sister of William de Warren, Earl of Warren and Surrey (See Burke, pg. 468). The St. Liz line follows from which gave designation to the earldom of Huntingdon, conferred, by William the Conqueror, upon Waltheof. Waltheof married Judith, the daughter of William the Conqueror's sister, by the mother's side. Daughter Maud married (1) Simon de St. Liz, and (2) David, brother of Alexander, King of Scotland. He built the castle of Northampton, as also the priory of St. Andrews there, about the 18th yeare of the Conqueror's reign, and was a liberal benefactor to the church.
Simon de St. Liz, the second earl of Northampton, founded a Cluniac nunnery at Fotheringhay, but in Stephen's reign it was removed to Delapré on the south side of Northampton. The church of Fotheringhay remained appropriated to the abbey of Delapré until the beginning of the fifteenth century; the last appointment of a vicar by the Delapré convent occurred in 1388. Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York (June 5, 1341 – August 1, 1402) was a younger son of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault, the fourth of the five sons of the Royal couple who lived to adulthood. He was the founder of the House of York, but it was through the marriage of his younger son, Richard, that the Yorkist faction in the Wars of the Roses made its claim on the throne.
Edmund of Langley, was the first to form the idea of a grand collegiate church at Fotheringhay, and, in the lifetime of his father, built a large and magnificent quire at the east end of the old parish church. He did not live to accomplish his intention; but, after his death in 1402, his eldest son (by Isabel of Castile), Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York and 1st Duke of Aumale (1373 – 25 October 1415), desired to carry out his father's wishes, and to rebuild the body of the church on a like plan with the quire. For this purpose he appointed trustees, the first two of which were the cardinal bishops of Winchester and Durham. His paternal grandparents were Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault. His maternal grandparents were Peter I of Castile and Maria de Padilla. The college was founded in 1411, 6 acres of land between the castle and the rectory house being allotted for the purpose. This was the site on which the Cluniac nunnery had formerly stood. Edward, however, fell in the vanguard of the fight at Agincourt in 1415. Neither college nor church was yet finished, but his body was brought to Fotheringhay and interred in the church on 1 December. His will is reproduced in the Lincoln registers; he left his body to be buried in his college of Fotheringhay, in the midst of the quire under a flat piece of marble at the quire steps. This royal college consisted of a master, twelve chaplains or fellows, eight clerks, and thirteen choristers, and was dedicated in honour of the Blessed Virgin and All Saints. The chief duty of the members of the college was to pray for the good estate and for the souls of the king and queen, the Prince of Wales, the duke of York, and all the royal family. The endowment charter of Henry IV. granted the college a yearly charge of £67 6s. 8d. from the manors of Newent, Gloucester, and Kingston, Hertford, belonging to the alien priory of Newent, which was a cell of the abbey of Cormeilles, as well as all the possessions, spiritual and temporal, and all manorial rights that had pertained to that priory and to the alien priory of Avebury, Wiltshire, a cell of St. George Bocherville. A saving clause as to these two alien priories was inserted in the Act passed at Leicester in April, 1414. In the same yeare the convent of Delapré gave up to the college the church of Fotheringhay in return for a small pension.
In the following yeare (5 August, 1415) the duke of York obtained letters patent for the further endowment of the college, assigning to it the manors of 'Fasterne,' Old Wootton, Tockenham, Chelworth, Winterbourne, Compton-Bassett, and Sevenhampton, the advowson of the church of Tockenham, the town of 'Wotton Burgus,' and the hundreds of Highworth and Cricklade in Wiltshire; the manor of Dognton, Gloucestershire; the manor of Anstey in Hertfordshire, and the advowson of the church; the manors of Nassington and Yarwell; and the castle, manor, and town of Fotheringhay, in Northamptonshire; with the castle, town, and manor of Stamford, the town and soke of Grantham, in Lincolnshire; and the castle and manor of Conisbrough, 'Braiwell,' Clifton, Hatfield, Fishlake, and Thorne, in Yorkshire.
Before the duke sailed for France he entered into an explicit indenture with William Harwod, freemason of Fotheringhay, by which the duke was to find stone, timber, scaffolding, lime, and everything necessary to the work, and to pay £300 at stated periods. The whole of this interesting indenture has been several times printed. The duke's death at Agincourt (Leland tells us he was exceeding fat, and got smothered in the encounter) a few months later put a check on the work and on the organizing of the college; but his successor, Richard, duke of York, after some years, took the matter up and obtained in 1432 a yearly pension of 100s. towards completing the college. In 1439 the college was granted powers to enclose 20 acres within the forest of Rockingham. Duke Richard fell in battle at Wakefield on 31 December, 1460, and was at first interred at Pontefract. Soon after his accession the attention of Edward IV. was directed to the still incomplete Yorkist foundation at Fotheringhay. In the first yeare of his reign he granted the college a new charter and refounded it, bestowing on it 100 acres of land, with divers liberties and privileges. In March, 1461-2, the king granted to Thomas Buxhale, the master, and the fellows of the king's college of Fotheringhay, a tun of red wine of Gascony yearly, in the port of London, at Christmastide, for the celebration of their daily masses, for ministering the holy sacrament at any time, and for their sustenance; at the same time he gave them 4 acres of land, with a limekiln, and a house at Woodnewton. In August of the same yeare there was granted to this same king's college the more substantial endowment of the alien priory and manor of Beckford, with its appurtenances in Gloucestershire and Lincolnshire; the lands of Ashton-onCarraunt, Gloucester, sometime parcel of the alien priory of 'Baylbek'; and the alien manors of Brixton and Charlton, Wiltshire, and Wilsford, Lincolnshire, with all appurtenances.
In March, 1465, Edward granted to Thomas Buxhale (who is described as one of the king's chaplains as well as master of the college), and the fellows, the whole of the possessions, spiritual and temporal, of the alien priory of Charlton. A yeare later the college received from Simon Norwyche the handsome endowment of 85 acres in the forest of Rockingham, for the alienation of which in mortmain the donor paid 10 marks. On 24 November, 1480, Edward IV. granted to William Field, the master, and the fellows of the college, quittance of all tenths, fifteenths, or other contributions or subsidies granted by the clergy of the realm of either province, or by the commons of the realm, or of any tallage on the king's demesne lands, or tenth, or other quota imposed by the pope. John Russell was the last master; in 1534, in conjunction with Thomas Birde, the precentor, and the rest of the fellows, he made formal submission to Henry VIII. as the head of the Church. His name also occurs in the Valor of the following year, when the considerable possessions of the college in the counties of Gloucester, Hunts, Lincoln, Middlesex, Northants, Rutland, Suffolk, Wilts, and Worcester, realized an annual value of £419 11s. 10¾d. (fn. 15) A rubricated copy of the statutes exists among the Augmentation Office records; from the entries at the end of the volume this was clearly the official copy of the statutes drawn up in the time of Henry V.
The legend, which is defaced, runs: SIGILLU COMMUNE COLLEGIJ B[EATE] MARIE [+] OIM SCOS DE FO[the]RINGHEY.
'Colleges: Fotheringhay', A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 2 (1906), pp. 170-77.