Thank you to John Tepper Marlin, MA (Oxon.), author of Oxford College Arms for writing this guest post for us.

Six Oxford colleges were founded under the Tudors. Three under Henry VIII, two under Mary I, and one during the reign of Elizabeth I.
As members of the Tudor Society will know, the Tudor dynasty started with Henry VII, son of Lancastrian Edmund Tudor and Margaret Beaufort, a descendant of Edward III. Henry VII was brought up in Wales but had exiled himself to France while the Yorkists were in power. After the disappearance of Edward V in 1483, his uncle Yorkist Richard III was crowned and soon made himself unpopular. Henry VII returned to Wales, assembled an army that defeated and killed Richard III at Bosworth Field in 1485, and was crowned king in London. By marrying Elizabeth of York the following year, Henry VII united the Houses of Lancaster and York and created as his badge the “Tudor Rose” – red outside, white inside–that ever since has been used by every British monarch as a symbol of England.