The strategy boiled down to:
0) Choose an aristocratic family with power and influence to be born into
1) Leverage your power and influence to get a great wife, with money and influence
2) Leverage your joint power and influence to get even richer
3) Write a will
4) Die
5) Your wife sets up a Chantry College in your name
6) Monks now pray for your soul every day for all eternity (well that was the idea – it did actually last 150 or so years in this instance)