Marie de St Pol

Marie de St Pol, Countess of Pembroke (c.1303–1377) was the wife of Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, and is best known as the foundress of Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Marie was born into the powerful French house of Châtillon, Counts of Saint Pol. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Châtillons married more often into the royal line than any other noble family, and they were renowned for holding prominent positions as Cardinals and Constables of France. Marie herself was cousin to Charles, Duke of Brittany. She was the fourth daughter of Guy, Count of St Pol and Marie of Brittany. She had four sisters and two brothers, but nothing is known about her childhood. She was also the great-granddaughter of Henry III of England through her mother.

Marie and Pembroke were married in Paris in 1321. Both Philippe V of France and Edward II of England were involved in the negotiations for her marriage. Marie was only seventeen when she married, whilst her husband was already fifty. It was his second marriage after the death of his first wife Béatrice de Clermont in 1320. Almost nothing is known of their three years of marriage except the occasion of his death in France on 23 June 1324. They had no children.

Legend has it that she was maiden, wife, and widow all in the space of a single day when her husband was killed in front of her in a friendly jousting match, on their wedding day. However, this is apocryphal as documentation indicates he died of apoplexy after three years of marriage.

Edward III’s charter in 1347 gave Marie the authority to found a house of scholars in Cambridge, allowing them to study in the faculties of the university and also awarded them property in Cambridge for their habitation. The resulting college was known as the Hall of Valence-Mary, and is known today as Pembroke College, home to over 700 students and fellows. This makes it the oldest Cambridge College with an unbroken constitution from its foundation to survive on its original site. In 1355 and 1366, Marie acquired papal bulls to allow the college its own chapel, which was the first college chapel to be built in Cambridge. This chapel building still exists as the Old Library to the left of the college gatehouse. It should not be confused with the later classical chapel to the south by Sir Christopher Wren.

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