Family/Spouse: Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Stafford. Humphrey (son of Humphrey (Stafford), 1st Duke of Buckingham and Lady Anne Neville) died in 1457/58. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Office: 17 June 1460; Constable of Nottingham Castle
• Decoration: 26 May 1465; Knight of the Order of the Bath (K.B.)
• Decoration: 1474; Knight of the Order of the Garter (K.G.)
• Office: 1483; Warden of the Cinque Ports
• Office: July 1483; Lord High Constable
• Hereditary Title: 10 July 1460 – 2 Nov. 1483; 2nd Duke of Buckingham [E., 1444]
• Hereditary Title: 10 July 1460 – 2 Nov. 1483; 3rd Earl of Buckingham [E., 1377?]
• Hereditary Title: 10 July 1460 – 2 Nov. 1483; 7th Earl of Stafford [E., 1351]
• Hereditary Title: 10 July 1460 – 2 Nov. 1483; 8th Baron Stafford [E., 1299]

Notes:

He was beheaded without trial and attainted, 2 Nov. 1483, for conspiring on behalf of the future Henry VII.

Decoration:
At the coronation of Elizabeth, wife of Edward IV.

Office:
Recognised as hereditary

Family/Spouse: Lady Katharine Woodville. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Decoration: 29 Oct. 1485; Knight of the Order of the Bath (K.B.)
• Decoration: circa 1499; Knight of the Order of the Garter (K.G.)
• Office: 1509; Bearer of the Crown
• Office: 1509; Lord High Constable
• Office: 1509; Lord High Steward of England
• Office: 1509; Privy Councillor (P.C.)
• Hereditary Title: Nov. 1485 – May 1521; 3rd Duke of Buckingham [E., 1444]
• Hereditary Title: Nov. 1485 – May 1521; 4th Earl of Buckingham [E., 1377?]
• Hereditary Title: Nov. 1485 – May 1521; 8th Earl of Stafford [E., 1351]
• Hereditary Title: Nov. 1485 – May 1521; 9th Baron Stafford [E., 1299]
• Hereditary Title: Nov. 1485 – May 1521; Count of Perche [Normandy, 1431]

Notes:

He had licence to castellate his manor of Thornbury, 9 July 1510.

He held a command in the right wing at Therouenne in 1513.

Office:
For Henry VIII's coronation

He laid claim to this office, as his hereditary right, in 1514. He claimed the Lord High Constableship as heir of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, who, it was stated, "held the manors of Harlefield, Newnam, and Whytenhurst [Haresfield, Newnham, and Wheatenhurst], in the county of Gloucester of the King by the service of being Constable of England." The judges decided that the office should "have continuance in the Duke notwithstanding that one of the three manors has come to the hands of our Lord the King; for otherwise it will ensue that the Duke will have the two other manors without doing any service for them, and so the Duke is compellable at the pleasure of the King to do and exercise the office." For an account of the confusion into which the judges were led by their misconception of the nature of the tenure of this office, which was not in fact attached to the manors but was an office held in fee; and of the confusion worse confounded in which Law Lords and Counsel in modern peerage cases have been involved owing to their blind acceptance of the decision in this case, see J. H. Round's Peerage and Pedigree (vol. i, pp. 147–166), where an amusing exposure of legal methods is given in the article termed "The Muddle of the Law." See also Appendix D in The Complete Peerage, volume II (1912).

Office:
At Henry VIII's coronation

Office:
At Henry VIII's coronation

Died:
Beheaded for High Treason, having made an enemy of Wolsey and endangered his position by his vanity, especially his loquacity in reminding hearers of his descent from Edward III, following which his titles were forfeited by attainder (Parliamentary ratification 31 July 1523).

Edward married Lady Eleanor Percy circa 14 Dec. 1490. Eleanor (daughter of Henry (Percy), 4th Earl of Northumberland and Lady Maud Herbert) died on 13 Feb. 1530; was buried in Greyfriars, London, Middlesex, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Decoration: 1505; Knight of the Order of the Garter (K.G.)
• Hereditary Title: 28 Jan. 1509/10; 1st Earl of Wiltshire [E., 1510]
• Office: by 1520; Privy Councillor (P.C.)

Henry married Cicely (Bonville), suo jure Baroness Harington and Bonville between 22 Nov. 1503 and 18 Oct. 1505. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Hereditary Title: 18 Sept. 1501 – 17 May 1521; Earl of Stafford [courtesy title]
• Office: 1532; Recorder of Stafford
• Hereditary Title: 1547; 1st Baron Stafford [E., 1547]
• Office: 23 Feb. 1553/54; Chamberlain of the Exchequer
• Office: 1559; Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire
• Office: 24 Sept. 1560; Ranger of the Forest of Cannock

Notes:

As Henry Stafford he was granted by the King, 20 Dec. 1522, several of the estates in Staffordshire and elsewhere, forfeited by his father. This grant was confirmed by Act of Parliament, 14 and 15 Hen. VIII.

Though still "corrupted in blood," he received a further grant of the castle and manor of Stafford, 15 July 1531, being there described as Henry, Lord Stafford, by which style he was thereafter generally known.

In a petition for restoration of blood, 1529, he states that Wolsey had turned him out of his house in Sussex, where he had lived three years, and thereby compelled him "to board at an abbey this four years' day with his wife and seven children."

On 5 Dec. 1532 he paid £20 as a fine to be excused from being Knight of the Bath. He wrote to Cromwell from Stafford, 2 Oct. 1538, that he had removed "the idol called of ignorant persons Saint Erasmus" and had "so used it that no man shall thereby offend in idolatry hereafter."

He was admitted to Gray's Inn, 1528.

He was a Bencher, Middle Temple, before 1551.

His letter-book, 1545–53, with other MS. collections on his family history, is penes Lord Bagot. In 1548 he published The true dyfferes between ye regall power and the ecclesiasticall power (a translation of Fox's work of 1534), with a handsome dedication to Protector Somerset. His translation of two epistles of Erasmus was published in 1553, though no copy can now be traced (Strype, Eccles. Mem., volume iii, pt. 1, page 180). He also translated from the French by Treherne a work on forests, which is extant in Stowe MS. 414, folios 203–26. An epitaph by him on his sister, the Duchess of Norfolk, in Lambeth church, is printed in Horace Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, ed. Park, volume ii, pages 10–11.

Admon. was granted 23 June 1563, to Ursula, his relict.

Birth:
The Register from which this date is taken was begun by Edward, Lord Stafford, 2 Jan. 1568/9, and forms part of the Stafford MSS. penes Lord Bagot, calendared in Hist. MSS. Com., 4th Rep., pages 325–28. Henry is confused with his uncle "Lord Harry of Stafforth" (created Earl of Wiltshire, 27 Jan. 1509/10) by Gairdner in The Paston Letters, volume iii, page 404, note 1.

Hereditary Title:
By Act of Parliament (Nov.–Dec. 1547) 1 Edw. VI, with remainder to the heirs male of his body.

He was summoned to Parliament accordingly, 24 Nov. (1548) 2 Edw. VI, being placed last among the Barons.

On 12 Feb. 1557/58, by resolution of the House of Lords, he was restored to the precedency of his ancestors, Barons Stafford, and was placed after Lord Talbot.

This creation of 1547 was unquestionably a new one, nor were there any words therein to give it the precedence due to the old Barony. The limitation to heirs male of the grantee was also different from that of the Barony created by the writ of 1298/99; yet as was often the case (see The Complete Peerage, 2nd ed., volume I, Appendix C), the House of Lords allowed the grantee the precedency enjoyed by his ancestor.

It seems almost certain that "Henricus Stafford, armiger," who had been M.P. for Stafford, Jan. 1544/45 to Jan. 1546/47, and was re-elected to this Parliament, 13 Oct. 1547, was his bastard brother, another Henry Stafford, or, less probably, his son Henry, later 2nd Lord Stafford.

Office:
In consideration of his service in the late rebellion of the Duke of Northumberland he was granted, 10 July 1554, Thornbury Castle and other lands in co. Gloucester and elsewhere, formerly belonging to his father.

Henry married Lady Ursula Pole in Feb. 1518/19. Ursula (daughter of Sir Richard Pole and Saint Margaret (Plantagenet), suo jure Countess of Salisbury) died on 12 Aug. 1570. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Catherine married Ralph (Neville), 4th Earl of Westmorland before June 1520. Ralph was born on 21 Feb. 1497/98; died on 24 April 1549; was buried in Staindrop, Co. Durham, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Mary married George (Neville), 5th Lord Bergavenny circa June 1519. George (son of George (Neville), 4th Lord Bergavenny and Margaret Fenne) was born circa 1469; died in 1535; was buried in Birling, Kent, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]