Feudal barony of Dunster King Henry VII (1485–1509), he obtained the reward from that king of a reversal of his father's attainder and received restoration of his lands from the Herberts, who had never lived at Dunster, having been long seated in Wales. He was instrumental in quelling the rebellion in Devon. In 1487 on the coronation of the queen he was appointed K.B.. He was Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset in 1488. He erected the surviving sculpted stone heraldic panel above the western arch of the Gatehouse to Dunster Castle, showing on six shields (a further two blank) the arms of Luttrell, Beaumont,
Henry Dunster University. He set up as well as taught Harvard's entire curriculum alone for many years, graduating the first college class in America, the Class of 1642. From 1649-1650 Dunster also served as interim pastor at The First Parish in Cambridge until the accession of Jonathan Mitchel. Historians have generally treated Dunster well in terms of his theological beliefs and educational abilities. Samuel Eliot Morison, the best-known historian of Harvard's history, wrote that Harvard College "might have followed her first patron to an early death and oblivion but for the faith, courage and intelligence of Henry Dunster." Dunster held Harvard together