Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham

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For other people with similar names, see 1st Duke of Buckingham (disambiguation) and Humphrey Stafford (disambiguation).

Humphrey Stafford
The
Sir Henry Stafford
  • John Stafford, 1st Earl of Wiltshire
  • (More)
    • FatherEdmund Stafford, 5th Earl of Stafford
    MotherAnne of Gloucester

    Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham, 6th Earl of Stafford, 7th Baron Stafford,

    Cardinal Beaufort
    for political supremacy. Stafford also took part in the eventual arrest of Gloucester in 1447.

    Stafford returned to the French campaign during the 1430s and for his loyalty and years of service, he was elevated from Earl of Stafford to

    Sir Thomas Malory in the Midlands
    .

    After returning from France, Stafford remained in England for the rest of his life, serving King Henry. He acted as the King's bodyguard and chief negotiator during

    came of age
    in 1473.

    Background and youth

    Colour diagram of Stafford's coat of arms
    Arms of Sir Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham, KG

    Humphrey Stafford was born in

    Thomas of Woodstock.[1] This gave Humphrey royal descent, and made him a second cousin to the then king, Henry IV.[2]

    On 21 July 1403, when Humphrey was less than a year old, his father was killed fighting for Henry IV against the rebel

    Earl of Stafford.[3] With the earldom came a large estate with land in more than a dozen counties. Through her previous marriage to Edmund's older brother, Thomas, his mother accumulated two dowries,[a] each comprising a third of the Stafford estates. She occupied these lands for the next twenty years,[7] and Humphrey received a reduced income of less than £1,260 a year until he came of age. As his mother could not, by law, be his guardian,[8] Humphrey became a royal ward and was put under the guardianship of Henry IV's queen, Joan of Navarre.[1] His minority lasted for the next twenty years.[9]

    Early career

    Although Stafford received a reduced inheritance, as the historian Carol Rawcliffe has put it, "fortunes were still to be made in the French wars". Stafford assumed the profession of arms.

    royal council if the King had left any final instructions regarding the governance of Normandy, he claimed that he had been too upset at the time to be able to remember.[12] Stafford was still a minor,[12] but parliament soon granted him livery of his father's estate, allowing him full possession. The grant was based on Stafford's claim that the King had orally promised him this before dying. The grant did not require him to pay a fee into the Exchequer, as was normal.[13][b]

    The new king, Henry VI, was still only a baby, so the

    Cardinal—that he was to absent himself from Windsor until it was decided if he could carry out his traditional duty of Prelate to the Order of the Garter now that Pope Martin V had promoted him.[12]

    2017 colour photograph of the remains of Stafford Castle
    Stafford Castle, the Stafford family seat, as it remains in 2017

    Stafford was made a Knight of the Order of the Garter in April 1429.[22] The following year, he travelled to France with the King for Henry's French coronation, escorting him through the war-torn countryside.[23] The Earl was appointed Lieutenant-General of Normandy,[24] Governor of Paris, and Constable of France over the course of his next two years of service there.[1] Apart from one occasion in November 1430 when he and Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter took the English army to support Philip, Duke of Burgundy, Stafford's primary military role at this time was defending Paris and its environs.[25] He also attended the interrogation of Joan of Arc in Rouen in 1431; at some point during these proceedings, a contemporary alleged, Stafford attempted to stab her and had to be physically restrained.[1][26]

    On 11 October 1431 the King created Stafford

    Count of Perche, which was a province in English-occupied Normandy;[c] he was to hold the title until the English finally withdrew from Normandy in 1450.[28][29] The county was valued at 800 marks per annum,[30][d] although the historian Michael Jones has suggested that due to the war, in real terms "the amount of revenue that could be extracted ... must have been considerably lower".[28] Since Perche was a frontier region, in a state of almost constant conflict,[32] whatever income the estate generated was immediately re-invested in its defence.[33]

    In England, the King's minority ended in 1436. In preparation for his personal rule, the council reorganised Henry's Lancastrian estates to be under the control of local magnates. This gave Stafford responsibility for much of the north Midlands, which was the largest single area of the duchy to be delegated among the nobility.[34] This put the royal affinity—those men retained directly by the Crown to provide a direct link between the King and the localities[35]—at his command.[36]

    Estates

    Marcher castles—Caus, Hay, Huntingdon, and Bronllys—had, by the 1450s, generally fallen into disrepair, and his other border castles, such as Brecon and Newport, he rarely used.[41] Stafford's Thornbury manor was convenient for Bristol and was a stopping point to and from London.[41][e]

    Stafford's mother's death in 1438 transformed his fiscal position. He now received the remainder of his father's estates—worth about £1,500—and his mother's half of the de Bohun inheritance, which was worth another £1,200. The latter also included the earldom of Buckingham, worth £1,000 on its own; Stafford had become one of the greatest landowners in England overnight.[1] "His landed resources matched his titles", explained Albert Compton-Reves, scattered as they were throughout England, Wales and Ireland,[43] with only the King and Richard, Duke of York wealthier.[44] One assessment of his estates suggests that, by the late 1440s, his income was over £5,000 per annum,[45] and K. B. McFarlane estimated Stafford's total potential income from land to have been £6,300 gross annually, at its peak between 1447 and 1448.[46][47] On the other hand, the actual yield may have been lower; around £3,700:[48] rents, for example, were often difficult to collect. Even a lord of the status of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, owed Stafford over £100 in unpaid rent for the manor of Drayton Bassett in 1458.[49] In the 1440s and 1450s, Stafford's Welsh estates were particularly notable for both their rent arrears and public disorder.[50] Further—and like most nobles of the period—he substantially overspent, possibly, says Harriss, by as much as £300 a year.[51] His treasurer, William Wistowe, when rendering his accounts for the years 1452–1453, noted that Stafford was owed £730 by his reckoning, some debts being 20 years old. Despite this, says Woolgar, "there [is] no suggestion that [Stafford] found it difficult to obtain cash or goods".[52][f]

    Affinity and problems in the localities

    In

    indenture.[g] In the late 1440s his immediate affinity was at least ten knights and twenty-seven esquires, mainly drawn from Cheshire.[47] By the 1450s—a period beginning with political tension and ending with civil war—Stafford retained men specifically "to sojourn and ride" with him.[58] His affinity was probably composed along the lines laid out by royal ordinance at the time which dictated the nobility should be accompanied by no more than 240 men, including "forty gentlemen, eighty yeomen and a variety of lesser individuals",[47] suggested T. B. Pugh, although in peacetime Stafford would have required far fewer. It was directly due to the political climate that this increased, especially after 1457.[59] Stafford's household more generally has been estimated at around 150 people by about 1450,[60] and it has been estimated that maintaining both his affinity and household cost him over £900 a year.[47]

    Colour photograph of Maxstoke Castle in 2010
    Maxstoke Castle, purchased by Stafford from Lord Clinton

    Along with Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, Stafford was the major magnatial influence in Warwickshire,[61] so when Beauchamp left for a lengthy tour of duty in France, in 1437, Stafford became the centre of regional power stretching from Warwickshire to Derbyshire.[38] He was sufficiently involved in the royal court and government that he was often unable to attend to the needs of his region.[1] This caused him local difficulties; on 5 May 1430 a Leicestershire manor of Stafford's was attacked[62] and he faced problems in Derbyshire in the 1440s, although there, Helen Castor has said, Stafford "made no attempt to restore peace, nor made any attempt to intervene at all".[63] Stafford also had major estates on the Welsh Marches. This area was prone to regular lawlessness and particularly occupied his time as a royal justice.[1]

    One of the best-known disputes Stafford had with his local gentry was in his Midlands heartlands. This was with

    Newbold estate—intending to ambush him.[64] Stafford fought back, repelling Malory's small force with sixty yeomenry.[65] In another episode, Malory stole deer from the earl's park at Caludon.[66] Stafford personally arrested Malory on 25 July 1451.[67] The Earl also ended up in a dispute with William Ferrers of Staffordshire, even though the region was the centre of Stafford's authority and where he may have expected to be strongest. Ferrers had recently been appointed to the county King's Bench and attempted to assert political control over the county as a result.[68] Following Cade's rebellion in 1450, Stafford's park at Penshurst was attacked by local men whom the historian Ralph Griffiths describes as "concealing their faces with long beards and charcoal-blackened faces, calling themselves servants of the queen of the fairies".[69] Towards the end of the decade, not only was he unable to prevent feuding amongst the local gentry, but his own affinity was in discord.[70] This may in part be due to the fact that at this time he was not spending much of his time in the Midlands, preferring to stay close to London and the King, dwelling either at his manors of Tonbridge or Writtle.[71]

    Later career

    standards
    of the Earls of Warwick and Stafford.

    Rouse's text reads:

    Here shewes howe Philip Duc of Burgoyn beseged Caleys/ And humfrey Duc of Gloucester Richard Erle of Warrewik and humfrey Erle of Stafford. w' a greet multitude. went over the see/ and folowed the Duc of Burgoyn he ever fleyng before them / And there they sore nioed the Contrey. w' fire and swerd.[72]

    — John Rouse, Beauchamp Pageant

    In July 1436, Stafford, accompanied by Gloucester,

    Captain of Calais[1] and the Risbanke fort, and was indented to serve for the next decade.[76] Before his departure for Calais in September 1442, the garrison had revolted and seized the Staple's wool in lieu of unpaid wages. Stafford received a pledge from the council that if such a situation arose again during his tenure, he would not be held responsible.[77] In light of the secrecy that cloaked Stafford's appointment in 1442, suggests David Grummitt, it is possible that the revolt had actually been staged by his servants to ensure that Stafford "had entry [to Calais] on favourable terms".[78] Stafford himself emphasised the need to restore order there in his original application for the office.[79] He also received another important allowance, being granted permission to export gold and jewels (up to the value of £5,000 per trip) for his use in France, even though the export of bullion was illegal at the time.[80] He served the full term of his appointment as Calais captain, leaving office in 1451.[1]

    Around 1435, Stafford was granted the

    Halton from 1439, and Lieutenant of the Marches from 1442 to 1451. Stafford became less active on the council around the same time.[83] He became Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, Constable of Dover Castle and Constable of Queenborough, on the Isle of Sheppey, in 1450. He again represented the Crown during further peace talks with the French in 1445 and 1446.[1]

    In the event, Stafford rarely visited Calais. Factional strife had continued intermittently between Beaufort and Gloucester, and Stafford—who had also been appointed

    Eleanor Cobham, of witchcraft,[51] and five years later he arrested the Duke at Bury St Edmunds on 18 February 1447 for treason.[1] Like many others, Stafford profited substantially from Gloucester's fall: when the latter's estates were divided up, the "major prizes"[85] went to the court nobility.[85]

    In September 1444, as reward for his loyal and continuous service to the Crown, he was created

    wool trade tax from the port of Sandwich, Kent, until it was paid off.[80] His other public offices also forced him to spend over his annual income, and he had household costs of over £2,000.[1] He was also a substantial creditor to the government, which was perennially short of cash.[90]

    With the outbreak of

    Jack Cade's rebellion, Buckingham summoned about seventy of his tenants from Staffordshire to accompany him while he was in London in May 1450.[91] He was one of the lords commissioned to arrest the rebels as part of a forceful government response on 6 June 1450, and he acted as a negotiator with the insurgents at Blackheath ten days later.[92] The promises that Buckingham made on behalf of the government were not kept, and Cade's army invaded London.[93] After the eventual defeat of the rebellion, Buckingham headed an investigatory commission designed to pacify rebellious Kent,[94] and in November that year he rode noisily through London—with a retinue of around 1,500 armed men—with the King and other peers, in a demonstration of royal authority intended to deter potential troublemakers in the future.[95] Following the rebellion, Buckingham and his retinue often acted as a bodyguard to the King.[96]

    Wars of the Roses

    Main article: Wars of the Roses

    In 1451, the King's

    Edward, Prince of Wales—to the King. But Henry remained unable to respond.[102] Buckingham took part in the council meeting which resulted in the arrest and subsequent year-long imprisonment of the Duke of Somerset.[99] In the February 1454 parliament Buckingham was appointed Steward of England, although Griffiths called this position "largely honorific".[103] This parliament also appointed York as Protector of the Realm from 27 March 1454.[104] Buckingham supported York's protectorate, attending York's councils more frequently than most of his fellow councillors.[105] The King recovered his health in January 1455, and, soon after, Somerset was released—or may have escaped—from the Tower. A contemporary commented how Buckingham "straungely conveied" Somerset from prison,[105] but it is uncertain whether this was as a result of the King ordering his release or whether Somerset escaped with Buckingham's connivance.[106] Buckingham may well by now have been expecting war to break out, because the same year he ordered the purchase of 2,000 cognizances—his personal badge of the 'Stafford knot'[107]—even though strictly the distribution of livery was illegal.[108]

    Battle of St Albans

    Main article: First Battle of St Albans

    Following the King's recovery, York was either dismissed from or resigned his protectorship, and together with his Neville allies, withdrew from London to their northern estates. Somerset—in charge of government once again—summoned a Great Council to meet in Leicester on 22 May 1455. The Yorkists believed they would be arrested or attainted at this meeting. As a result, they gathered a small force and marched south. The King, with a smaller force[109] that nonetheless included important nobles such as Somerset, Northumberland, Clifford and Buckingham and his son Humphrey, Earl of Stafford,[110] was likewise marching from Westminster to Leicester, and in the early morning of 22 May, royal scouts reported the Yorkists as being only a few hours away. Buckingham urged that they push on to St Albans—so that the King might dine[111]—which was not particularly easy to defend.[i] Buckingham also assumed that York would want to parley before launching an assault on the King, as he had in 1452. The decision to head for the town and not make a stand straight away may have been a tactical error;[109] the contemporary Short English Chronicle describes how the Lancastrians "strongly barred and arrayed for defence" immediately after they arrived.[109]

    Map of the 1st battle of St Albans
    Estimated disposition of the Yorkist (blue) and Lancastrian (red) armies at the first Battle of St Albans, 22 May 1455

    The King was lodged in the town and York, with Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury and the Earl of Warwick, encamped to the south.[112] Negotiations commenced immediately. York demanded that Somerset be released into his custody, and the King replaced Somerset as Lord High Constable with Buckingham,[113] making Somerset subordinate.[111] In that capacity, Buckingham became the King's personal negotiator—Armstrong suggests because he was well known to be able to "concede but not capitulate"[110]—and received and responded to the Yorkists' messengers.[114] His strategy was to play for time,[115] both to prepare the town's defences[116] and to await the arrival of loyalist bishops, who could be counted on to bring the moral authority of the church to bear on the Yorkists.[116] Buckingham received at least three Yorkist embassies, but the King—or Buckingham—refused to give in to the main Yorkist demand, that Somerset be surrendered to them.[117] Buckingham may have hoped that repeated negotiations would deplete the Yorkists' zest for battle, and delay long enough for reinforcements to arrive.[118] Buckingham made what John Gillingham described as an "insidiously tempting suggestion"[119] that the Yorkists mull over the King's responses in Hatfield or Barnet overnight.[119] Buckingham's confidence in how reasonable the Yorkists would be[120] was misplaced.[110]

    The Yorkists realised what Buckingham—"prevaricating with courtesy", says Armstrong

    Thomas Clifford, 8th Baron de Clifford had all been killed.[j] Buckingham himself was wounded three times in the face[114][127] by arrows[124]—and sought sanctuary in the abbey.[128][k] His son appears to have been badly wounded. A chronicler reported that some Yorkist soldiers, intent on looting, entered the abbey to kill Buckingham, but that the Duke was saved by York's personal intervention.[110] In any case, says Harriss, Buckingham was probably captured with the King,[129] although he was still able to reward ninety of his retainers from Kent, Sussex[93] and Surrey. It is not known for certain whether these men had actually fought with him at St Albans; as K. B. McFarlane points out, many retinues did not arrive in time to fight.[130]

    Last years

    York now had the political upper hand, made himself Constable of England and kept the King as a prisoner, returning to the role of Protector when Henry became ill again.[104] Buckingham swore to "draw the lyne" with York,[131] and supported his second protectorate, although losing Queen Margaret's favour as a result. A contemporary wrote that in April 1456 the Duke returned to his Writtle manor, not looking "well plesid".[105] Buckingham played an important role at the October 1456 Great Council in Leicester.[132] Here, with other lords, he tried to persuade the King to impose a settlement, and at the same time declared that anyone who resorted to violence would receive "ther deserte"[133]—which included any who attacked York.[1]

    In 1459, with other lords, he renewed his oath of loyalty to the King and Prince of Wales.

    Sir William Oldhall,[1] worth about £800 per annum.[140] With York in exile, Buckingham was granted custody of York's wife, Cecily, Duchess of York, whom, a chronicler reports, he treated harshly in her captivity.[140]

    Death at Northampton

    Main article: Battle of Northampton (1460)
    Map of the battle of northampton
    Estimated positions of the Yorkist and Lancastrian armies at Northampton, 10 July 1460

    From the moment the Duke of York and the Neville earls left England it was obvious to the government that they would return; the only question was when. After a series of false alarms in early 1460, they eventually did so in June, landing at Sandwich, Kent.

    Edward, Earl of March sent envoys to negotiate,[142] but Buckingham—once again the King's chief negotiator,[143] and backed by his son-in-law, John Talbot and Lords Beaumont and Egremont[142]—was no longer conciliatory.[142] Buckingham denied the Yorkists' envoys' repeated requests for an audience with Henry,[144] denouncing the earls: "the Earl of Warwick shall not come to the King's presence and if he comes he shall die".[145] Buckingham condemned the bishops who had accompanied the Yorkist army as well, telling them that they were not men of peace, but men of war, and there could now be no peace with Warwick.[145] Personal animosity as much as political judgment was responsible for Buckingham's attitude, possibly, suggests Rawcliffe, the result of Warwick's earlier rent evasion.[139] Buckingham's influential voice was chief among those demanding a military response to Warwick and March;[146] the Duke may also have misinterpreted the Yorkists' requests to negotiate as a sign of weakness,[147] seeing the coming battle as an opportunity to settle scores with Warwick. But Buckingham misjudged both the size of the Yorkist army—which outnumbered that of the King[142]—and the loyalty of the Lancastrian army.[147] Whatever plans Buckingham had, says Carol Rawcliffe, they "ended abruptly" on the battlefield.[139]

    Buckingham's men dug in outside Northampton's southern walls, and fortified behind a tributary of the River Nene, close to Delapré Abbey.[148] Battle was joined early on 10 July 1460. Although it was expected to be a drawn-out affair—due to the near-impregnability of the royal position—it was shortened considerably when Lord Edmund Grey of Ruthin turned traitor to the King.[147] Grey "welcomed the Yorkists over the barricades" on the Lancastrian wing[143] and ordered his men to lay down arms, allowing the Yorkists access to the King's camp. Within half an hour, the battle was over.[147] By 2:00 pm, Buckingham, John Talbot, 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord Egremont and Viscount Beaumont, had all been killed by a force of Kentishmen.[147] The Duke was buried shortly after at Grey Friars Abbey in Northampton.[1]

    Buckingham had named his wife Anne sole

    executrix of his will. She was instructed to provide 200 marks to any clergy who attended his funeral, the remainder being distributed as poor relief. She was also to organise the establishment of two chantries in his memory and, says Barbara Harriss, he left "exceedingly elaborate" instructions for the augmentation of Pleshy college.[149][l]

    Aftermath

    Michael Hicks has noted that Buckingham was one of the few Lancastrian loyalists who was never accused by the Yorkists of being an "evil councillor",[152] even though he was—in Hicks's words—"the substance and perhaps the steel within the ruling regime".[152] Although Buckingham was not attainted when the Duke of York's son, Edward, Earl of March, took the throne as King Edward IV in 1461,[139] Buckingham's grandson Henry became a royal ward, which gave the King control of the Stafford estates during the young duke's minority.[153] Henry Stafford entered into his estates in 1473 but was executed by Edward's brother Richard—by then King, and against whom Henry had rebelled—in November 1483.[154]

    Character

    Humphrey Stafford has been described as something of a

    Epistle of Othea, demonstrating his position as a "powerful and potentially powerful patron",[158] and its dedicatory verse to Buckingham is particularly laudatory.[159] On Buckingham's estates—especially on the Welsh marches—he has been described as a "harsh and exacting landlord" in the lengths he went to in maximising his income.[160] He was also competent in his land deals, and seems never—unlike some contemporaries—to have had to sell land to stay solvent.[161]

    B. J. Harris noted that, although he died a staunch Lancastrian, he never showed any personal dislike of York in the 1450s, and that his personal motivation throughout the decade was loyalty to the Crown and keeping the peace between his peers.

    high politics of the day, Buckingham "lacked the necessary qualities ever to become a great statesman or leader ... [he] was in many ways an unimaginative and unlikeable man".[163] On the latter quality, Rawcliffe points to his reputation as a harsh taskmaster on his estates and his "offensive behaviour"[163] towards Joan of Arc. Further, she says, his political judgement could be clouded by his attitude.[163] His temper, she says, was "ungovernable".[1]

    Family

    Humphrey Stafford married

    Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland, by Lady Joan Beaufort (Westmorland's second wife), at some point before 18 October 1424.[1] Anne Neville was a literary patron in her own right, also receiving a dedication in a copy of Scrope's translated Othea.[158] On her death in 1480, she left many books in her will.[164][m] Scholars generally agree that Buckingham and Anne had twelve children, consisting of seven sons and five daughters.[1] Sources conflict over the precise details of the Staffords' progeny.[n] The antiquarian I. W. Dunham, writing in 1907, listed them as Humphrey, Henry, John, Anne (married Aubrey de Vere), Joan (married Viscount Beaumont before 1461), Elizabeth, Margaret (born about 1435, married Robert Dinham),[o] and Katherine (married John Talbot, the future 3rd Earl of Shrewsbury, before 1467). [p] James Tait lists the daughters as Anne, Joan, Elizabeth, Margaret and Catherine and suggests that Elizabeth and Margaret never married.[q] Rawcliffe gives the following as dates of birth and death for three of the daughters: Anne, 1446–1472; Joan, 1442–1484; and Katherine, 1437–1476.[1] Edward and the twins, George and William, died young. The seventh son has gone unremarked in the sources.[172]

    Scanned drawing of the stafford knot
    The Stafford knot, the cognizance of the earls of Stafford and dukes of Buckingham, worn by their retainers to indicate their allegiance

    The marriages Buckingham

    Louis XI).[171][r] Had it proceeded, it would have again linked the French Crown with the Lancastrian regime.[175]

    Buckingham's eldest son, Humphrey, married

    Sir Henry Stafford (c. 1425–1471), who became the third husband of Lady Margaret Beaufort, daughter of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and Margaret Beauchamp. Margaret Beaufort had previously been married to Edmund Tudor, the eldest half-brother of Henry VI, and had given birth to the future King Henry VII two months after Edmund's death. She and Henry were childless.[176] Buckingham's third surviving son, John (died 8 May 1473) married Constance Green of Drayton,[176] who had previously been the duke's ward.[177] Humphrey Stafford assigned them the manor of Newton Blossomville at the time of their marriage.[178] John was created Earl of Wiltshire in 1470.[179]

    Buckingham arranged good but costly marriages for three of his daughters.[1] Anne married Aubrey de Vere, son of John de Vere, Earl of Oxford.[180] Their 1452 marriage cost Buckingham 2,300 marks; he was slow to pay, and still owed Oxford over £440 seven years later.[181] In 1452, Joan married William Beaumont, heir of Viscount Beaumont. Katherine married John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, six years later. Buckingham had apparently promised to give them £1,000 but died before acting on the promise.[182]

    Cultural references and portrayals

    Buckingham was depicted, during his son's lifetime, "mounted in battle array"

    pictorial genealogy, the Beauchamp Pageant.[183][s]

    Arthurian character.[155] Buckingham appears in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2 (c. 1591), in which his character conspires in the downfall and disgrace of Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester.[186]

    According to Martin Wiggins of the Shakespeare Institute,[187] Buckingham may be the eponymous character of the early-17th-century play, Duke Humphrey, which is now lost.[188] However, the lost play could instead have been about the equally eventful career of Prince Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (1390–1447), the youngest son of Henry IV of England.

    Notes

    1. Alice, his brother's widow, Joan Stafford, and his aunt, Elizabeth of Lancaster, Duchess of Exeter.[5] When Edmund died in 1408, his wife then became the fourth dowager on the inheritance. There being no male heirs though, it was broken up and divided amongst them and Edmund's five sisters.[6]
    2. tenants-in-chief.[14] If a tenant-in-chief died without leaving an adult heir who could immediately receive the inheritance, the estates escheated (returned to the King).[15] The King would hold the estates until the heir (if any) reached his majority, at which point he would apply for livery of seisin: the right to enter his estates. Possession was usually obtained by paying a fine to the exchequer.[16]
    3. ^ A full list of Stafford's titles was drawn up in 1446 on a chief justices' roll.[27]
    4. ^ A medieval English mark was an accounting unit equivalent to two-thirds of a pound.[31]
    5. ^ Christian Woolgar has noted that, by this period, noble families were less peripatetic than they had been in the Early Middle Ages, and were tending to spend a greater amount of their time on fewer manors; Buckingham, he says, "spent much time at Writtle and Maxstoke".[42]
    6. ^ One of the most luxurious contemporary foodstuffs—sugar—says Woolgar, is a good barometer of the health of a medieval cashflow. Buckingham's household, he notes, consumed 245 pounds (111 kilograms) of the stuff in 1452–1453. In comparison, less than 50 years earlier, Richard, Bishop of Chichester, had used 50 pounds (23 kilograms) in 1406.[53]
    7. ^ K. B. McFarlane uses the example of John of Gaunt to illustrate the wide variety of staff that could be indentured; Gaunt contracted with, among others, his surgeons, chaplains, clerk, falconer, cook, minstrels, heralds, and legal counsels.[56] Buckingham retained physician Thomas Edmond to be available at all times with three horses, a yeoman, and a page, for which Edmond received £10 in wages.[57]
    8. Henry, Duke of Warwick. The historian Christine Carpenter has commented that, for Stafford, "the prospect of [Tutbury's] eventual alienation to someone who was then so young, whose interests in the north midlands were nothing like as strong as his own, and the eventual exclusion of any other grantees, including the Staffords, must have seemed profoundly insulting to Humphrey".[82] Carpenter suggests, though, that the transfer of the honour to Beauchamp should be seen as a favour to Beauchamp rather than an explicit criticism of Stafford.[82]
    9. ^ For example, it had no walls, only a defensible ditch, and access to the south of the main street was easy.[109]
    10. chronicler observed how "when the said lords were dead, the battle was ceased".[124] Historian C. A. J. Armstrong suggested that this may indicate that the Lancastrian lords' deaths were less an accident of war and more an "act of private revenge on a few prominent individuals" by York and the Nevilles.[125][126]
    11. ^ The James Butler, 5th Earl of Ormond had also taken refuge with the King and Buckingham, but escaped as the Yorkists approached; he was reported to have fled dressed in the garb of a monk, discarding his armour as he went.[125][126]
    12. Thomas, Duke of Gloucester in 1394, and on his death, it had been inherited by his daughter, Buckingham's mother, and eventually passed to the duke himself. The Victoria County History describes how the college was to be "augmented by three priests and six poor men, its possessions increased with lands to the amount of 100 marks yearly and a chapel built on the north side of the church, in which mass was to be said daily".[150] Anne seems to have done little regarding Buckingham's wishes until 1467, when, with her second husband Walter, Lord Mountjoy, she received licence to grant the college an estate worth about 40 marks per annum.[150] The church was almost completely rebuilt in 1888, but some of the central arches remain of the original 14th-century building.[151]
    13. ^ Anne lists her still-living children in her will of 1480: her "son Buckingham"—meaning her grandson Henry—and "my daughter Beaumond", "my son of Wiltshire", "my daughter of Richmond" and "my daughter Mountjoy".[165]
    14. ^ As Harald Kleinschmidt has noted, "determining the precise age of a person was difficult because birth dates were rarely recorded before the nineteenth century and because baptism was usually dated in terms of the day and the month, but not of the year in which it had occurred".[166] Further, says Hugh M. Thomas, there is an "inherent difficulty of calculating birth dates from life events" such as marriages.[167]
    15. ^ The Dinhams were one of the wealthiest gentry families in Devon of the period.[168]
    16. ^ Dunham, however, says that Humphrey was killed at the battle of St Albans in 1455,[169] rather than dying in 1458 (either from wounds sustained in the battle or of plague).[170]
    17. ^ The suggestion is by omission.[171]
    18. ^ Tait suggests that the proposal was in regard to Buckingham's eldest daughter while Rawcliffe indicates it was in respect to Anne.[171][1] The two authors are in conflict as to Anne being the eldest daughter.
    19. Cotton MS Julius, e iv. They describe the Pageant as "the only illustrated biography of a secular figure to have survived from the late middle ages".[184]While Rouse is generally held to be the Pageant's compiler, this has not been established with certainty.[185]

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    Bibliography

    Political offices
    Preceded by Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports
    1450–1459     		Succeeded by
    Preceded by Lord High Constable
    1455     		Succeeded by
    Preceded by Lord High Constable
    1456–1460     		Succeeded by
    Peerage of England
    New creation Duke of Buckingham
    1444–1460     		Succeeded by
    Preceded by
    Earl of Stafford

    1403–1460
    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Humphrey_Stafford,_1st_Duke_of_Buckingham&oldid=1214269762"