Henry Stafford, 1st Baron Stafford

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Henry Stafford, 1st Baron Stafford
Born18 September 1501
Thomas Stafford
Henry Stafford, 2nd Baron Stafford
Edward Stafford, 3rd Baron Stafford
Dorothy Stafford
and more..
FatherEdward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham
MotherEleanor Percy, Duchess of Buckingham
The west front of Thornbury Castle. The castle was begun in 1511 as a home for Henry Stafford's father, Edward Stafford, third Duke of Buckingham.

Henry Stafford, 1st Baron Stafford (18 September 1501 – 30 April 1563) was an English nobleman. After the execution for treason in 1521 and posthumous attainder of his father Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, with the forfeiture of all the family's estates and titles, he managed to regain some of his family's position[1] and was created Baron Stafford in 1547. However his family never truly recovered from the blow and thenceforward gradually declined into obscurity, with his descendant the 6th Baron being requested by King Charles I in 1639 to surrender the barony on account of his poverty.[2]

Origins

He was born on 18 September 1501 at Penshurst Place in Kent, the only son and heir of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham (1477–1521), of Stafford Castle in Staffordshire and of Thornbury Castle in Gloucestershire, by his wife Eleanor Percy, a daughter of Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland and Maud Herbert.[3]

Marriage and issue

On 16 February 1519, aged 18, he married

marriage settlement the Countess settled lands in Somerset and Devon worth 700 marks on the couple and their children and the Duke of Buckingham contributed lands worth £500 as Ursula's jointure.[5] He also paid for the wedding expenses, apart from Ursula's wedding clothes which were provided by her mother. Following their marriage, Henry and Ursula lived in the household of his father, where they had guardians to watch over them.[6] By Ursula he had about fourteen children, seven sons and seven daughters,[6] of whom twelve names are known:[7]

Titles and offices

He was styled by the

King Edward VI, and was thus created 1st Baron Stafford.[1]

The barony was initially regarded as a new creation, but in February 1558, he won the right to have it recognised as carrying precedence of the first creation of 1299, created for his ancestor

Mary I for financial assistance, he was made one of two Chamberlains of the Exchequer, a position that brought him an annual fee of £50.[citation needed
]

This was the 4th creation of the title

Cleveland commented on him as follows:[9]
"This unfortunate man, the great-grandson of the last Duke, was then sixty-five, and had sunk into so abject a condition that he felt ashamed of bearing his own name, and long passed as Fludd, or Floyde, having, it is supposed, assumed the patronymic of one of his uncle's servants, who had reared and sheltered him in early life."

Having trained as a lawyer at

lord-lieutenant of Staffordshire, a role which included being appointed as clerk of the Peace.[11] He is sometimes identified as the Henry Stafford who sat for Stafford in the House of Commons in 1545 and 1547, but it is more likely that this was his illegitimate half-brother Henry Stafford.[12]

Literary interests

Stafford had an extensive library of about 300 books, mostly in Latin. In 1548 he published an English translation of the 1534 tract by

Erasmus against Luther, of which neither survives. He commissioned other translations, such as Humphrey Lloyd's version of Vassaeus on urine, and influenced the publication of Mirror for Magistrates in 1559.[1]

Death

He died on 30 April 1563, at the age of 61, at Caus Castle in Shropshire,[1] the seat of the Corbet family. He was buried on 6 May in nearby Worthen Church. He was succeeded in his titles by his eldest surviving son Henry Stafford, 2nd Baron Stafford (died 1566), who himself died almost three years later.

References

  1. ^ a b c d Henry Stafford, 1st Baron Stafford profile, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
  2. ^ a b c Cokayne, Complete Peerage, new edition, vol.XII, p.188
  3. ^ Pollard, Albert Frederick (1898). "Stafford, Henry (1501-1563)" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 53. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 450–451.
  4. ^ Barbara Jean Harris, Edward Stafford, Third Duke of Buckingham, 1478–1521, p. 55, Google Books. Retrieved 3 December 2009
  5. ^ a b Harris, p.55
  6. ^ a b c Harris, p.56
  7. ^ Males customarily listed first
  8. ^ Cokayne, Complete Peerage, new edition, vol.XII, p.187
  9. Wilhelmina, Duchess of Cleveland, The Battle Abbey Roll with some Account of the Norman Lineages, 3 volumes, London, 1889, Vol.3, pp.171 et seq, re: Toesni, p.174[1]
  10. ^ Cokayne, Complete Peerage, new edition, vol.XII, p.183
  11. ^ History of Lord-Lieutenant of Staffordshire. Retrieved 17 January 2010
  12. ^ STAFFORD, Henry (by 1520-55 or later), of Pickering, Yorks, The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Wikisource has the text of the 1885–1900 Dictionary of National Biography's article about Stafford, Henry (1501-1563).


Peerage of England
New creation Baron Stafford
4th creation
1547–1563 		Succeeded by
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