The legal formalities connected with the surrender of the properties of King's Hall and Michael-House took a considerable time, and were not completed till 17 December 1546. The letters patent founding the College and the charter of dotation were signed a few days later[15]. The actual endowment granted was valued at £1640 net a year, which must have been deemed ample to provide for the expenses and the maintenance of the House. Comparing this income and the estimated expenditure with those of King's Hall and Michael-House we gather how much more important than these colleges was the contemplated new foundation.
Thus were King's Hall and Michael-House dissolved, but only to be merged in a new and nobler Society. The letters patent founding Trinity College state that Henry to the glory and honour of Almighty God and the Holy and Undivided Trinity, for the amplification and establishment of the Christian and true religion, the extirpation of heresy and false opinion, the increase and continuance of divine learning and all kinds of godliness, the knowledge of language, the education of youth in piety virtue discipline and learning, the relief of the poor and destitute, the prosperity of the Church of Christ, and the common good and happiness of his kingdom and subjects, founded and established a College of letters, sciences, philosophy; godliness, and sacred theology, for all time to endure. These are noble objects, and we may look back with honourable pride to the way in which Trinity College has on the whole carried out the intentions of its founder.
The organization of the new College followed closely that outlined in the _Distribucio_. To meet the expenses already incurred during the Michaelmas term the Court of Augmentations[16] in January 1547 paid Redman £590 "towards the exhibition of King's Scholars in Cambridge." This was about one-third of the total intended income of the House, and presumably cleared matters up to 24 December 1546, when the College entered into possession of its endowments. If we may trust the sermon preached in London on 12 December 1550, by Thomas Lever, subsequently master of St John's College, Trinity had reason to regret the death of Henry in January 1547, for the preacher asserted that a substantial part of the intended endowment was appropriated by courtiers in London; I have never investigated what part (if any) of it was thus lost to the College.