Edward Stafford | |
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The Duke of Buckingham | |
![]() Portrait of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, by an unknown artist, 1520, at Magdalene College, Cambridge | |
Born | 3 February 1478 Brecon Castle, Wales |
Died | 17 May 1521 43) Tower Hill | (aged
Buried | Austin Friars Church, London |
Noble family | Stafford |
Spouse(s) | Lady Eleanor Percy |
Issue | Lady Elizabeth Stafford, Duchess of Norfolk Lady Katherine Stafford, Countess of Westmorland Lady Mary Stafford, Baroness Bergavenny Henry Stafford, 1st Baron Stafford |
Father | Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham |
Mother | Lady Katherine Woodville |
Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham KG (3 February 1478 – 17 May 1521) was an English nobleman. He was the son of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and Katherine Woodville, and nephew of Elizabeth Woodville and King Edward IV. Thus, Edward Stafford was a first cousin once removed of King Henry VIII. He was convicted of treason and executed on 17 May 1521.
Edward Stafford, born 3 February 1478 at Brecon Castle in Wales, was the eldest son of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and Catherine Woodville (the daughter of Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers, by Jacquetta of Luxembourg, daughter of Pierre de Luxembourg, Count of St. Pol) and was thus a nephew of Elizabeth Woodville and King Edward IV. [1]
By his father's marriage to Catherine Woodville, Stafford had a younger brother, Henry Stafford, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, [lower-alpha 1] and two sisters: Elizabeth, who married Robert Radcliffe, 1st Earl of Sussex, and Anne, who married firstly Sir Walter Herbert (d. 16 September 1507), an illegitimate son of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, [2] and secondly George Hastings, 1st Earl of Huntingdon. [3]
After the execution of the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, his widow, Catherine Woodville, married Jasper Tudor, second son of Owen Tudor and King Henry V's widow, Catherine of Valois. After Jasper Tudor's death on 21 December 1495, Catherine Woodville married Sir Richard Wingfield (d. 22 July 1525). Catherine Woodville died 18 May 1497. After her death, Sir Richard Wingfield married Bridget Wiltshire, daughter and heiress of Sir John Wiltshire of Stone, Kent. [4]
In October 1483 Stafford's father was central in Buckingham's rebellion against King Richard III. He was beheaded without trial on 2 November 1483, whereby all his honours were forfeited. Stafford is said to have been hidden in various houses in Herefordshire at the time of the rebellion, and perhaps for the remainder of Richard III's reign. After Richard III's defeat at Bosworth on 22 August 1485, and King Henry VII's accession to the crown, Stafford was made a Knight of the Order of the Bath on 29 October 1485 as Duke of Buckingham, and attended Henry VII's coronation the following day, although his father's attainder was not formally reversed by Parliament until November. The young Duke's wardship and lands were granted, on 3 August 1486, along with the wardship of his younger brother, Henry Stafford, to the King's mother, Margaret Beaufort, and according to Davies it is likely Buckingham was educated in her various households. [5]
Buckingham was in attendance at court at the elevation of Henry VII's second son, the future King Henry VIII, as Duke of York, on 9 November 1494, and was made a Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1495. In September 1497 he was a captain in the forces sent to quell a rebellion in Cornwall. [ citation needed ]
As a young man, Buckingham played a conspicuous part in royal weddings and the reception of ambassadors and foreign princes, "dazzling observers by his sartorial splendour". At the wedding of Henry VII's eldest son and heir Arthur, Prince of Wales, and Catherine of Aragon in 1501, he is said to have worn a gown worth £1500. He was the chief challenger at the jousting tournament held the following day. [6]
At the accession of King Henry VIII, Buckingham was appointed on 23 June 1509, for the day of the coronation only, Lord High Constable, an office which he claimed by hereditary right. He also served as Lord High Steward at the coronation and bearer of the crown. In 1509 he was made a member of the King's Privy Council. On 9 July 1510 he had licence to crenellate his manor of Thornbury, Gloucestershire, and according to Davies rebuilt the manor house as "an impressively towered castle" with "huge oriel windows in the living-quarters in the inner court". [7]
In 1510 Buckingham was involved in a scandal concerning his sister, Anne, who was the wife of George Hastings, 1st Earl of Huntingdon. [8] After hearing rumours concerning her and Sir William Compton, Buckingham found Compton in Anne's room. Compton was forced to take the sacrament to prove that he and Anne had not committed adultery, and Anne's husband sent her away to a convent 60 miles (100 km) from the court. There is no extant evidence establishing that Anne and Sir William Compton were guilty of adultery. In 1523 Compton took the unusual step of bequeathing land to Anne in his will, and directing his executors to include her in the prayers for his kin for which he had made provision in his will. [9] There are some suggestions that the affair continued until 1513. [ citation needed ] He returned to the King's graces, being present at the marriage of Henry's sister, served in Parliament and was present at negotiations with Francis I of France and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. [ citation needed ]
From June to October 1513 Buckingham served as a captain during Henry VIII's invasion of France, commanding 500 men in the "middle ward". [10] About 1517 he was one of 12 challengers chosen to joust against the King and his companions but excused himself on the ground that he feared to run against the King's person. He and his wife, Eleanor, attended the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. [11]
Although Buckingham was appointed to commissions of the peace in 1514 and charged—together with other Marcher lords—with responsibility for keeping order in south Wales, particularly along the borderland Welsh Marches, he was rebuked by the King in 1518 for failing to achieve the desired results. Buckingham exercised little direct political influence and was never a member of the King's inner circle. [12]
Buckingham was one of few peers with substantial Plantagenet blood and maintained numerous connections, often among his extended family, with the rest of the upper aristocracy, activities which attracted Henry's suspicion. During 1520, Buckingham became suspected of potentially treasonous actions and Henry authorised an investigation. The King personally examined witnesses against him, gathering enough evidence for a trial. The Duke was finally summoned to Court in April 1521 and arrested and placed in the Tower. He was tried before a panel of 17 peers, being accused of listening to prophecies of the King's death and intending to kill the King. Buckingham was executed on Tower Hill on 17 May 1521 and posthumously attainted by Act of Parliament on 31 July 1523, disinheriting most of his wealth from his children. [13]
Some conclude this was one of the few executions of high personages under Henry VIII in which the accused was "almost certainly guilty". However, Sir Thomas More complained that the key evidence was hearsay from servants who, as commoners, were threatened and tortured to extract false confessions. [14]
Buckingham's literary patronage included two translations, a printed translation of Helyas, Knyghte of the Swanne (on the Knight of the Swan), which he commissioned in 1512, and A Lytell Cronicle, a translation of an account of the Near East which he may have commissioned in 1520 in connection with his proposed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. [12]
In 1488, Henry VII had suggested a marriage between Buckingham and Anne of Brittany, but in December 1489 the executors of Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland, paid the King £4,000 for Buckingham's marriage to Percy's eldest daughter Eleanor (d. 1530). They had a son and three daughters: [15]
Buckingham is also said to have had three [lower-alpha 2] illegitimate children: [18]
Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, 1st Earl of Ormond, 1st Viscount RochfordKGKB, of Hever Castle in Kent, was an English diplomat and politician who was the father of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII, and was thus the maternal grandfather of Queen Elizabeth I. By Henry VIII he was made a knight of the Garter in 1523 and was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Rochford in 1525 and in 1529 was further ennobled as Earl of Wiltshire and Earl of Ormond.
Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, KG was an English nobleman known as the namesake of Buckingham's rebellion, a failed but significant collection of uprisings in England and parts of Wales against Richard III of England in October 1483. He was executed without trial for his role in the uprisings. Stafford is also one of the primary suspects in the disappearance of Richard's nephews, the Princes in the Tower.
Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, styled Earl of Surrey from 1483 to 1485 and again from 1489 to 1514, was an English nobleman, soldier and statesman who served four monarchs. He was the eldest son of John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk, by his first wife, Catharina de Moleyns. The Duke was the grandfather of both Queen Anne Boleyn and Queen Catherine Howard and the great-grandfather of Queen Elizabeth I. In 1513 he led the English to victory over the Scots at the decisive Battle of Flodden, for which he was richly rewarded by King Henry VIII, then away in France.
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, was a prominent English politician and nobleman of the Tudor era. He was an uncle of two of the wives of King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, both of whom were beheaded, and played a major role in the machinations affecting these royal marriages. After falling from favour in 1546, he was stripped of his Dukedom and imprisoned in the Tower of London, avoiding execution when Henry VIII died on 28 January 1547.
Edward Stafford, 2nd Earl of WiltshireKB was an English nobleman.
Henry Stafford, 1st Earl of Wiltshire was an English peer.
George Nevill, 5th Baron Bergavenny KG, PC, the family name often written Neville, was an English nobleman and courtier who held the office of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.
Catherine Woodville was the Duchess of Buckingham and a medieval English noblewoman.
Henry Courtenay, 1st Marquess of Exeter, 2nd Earl of Devon, KG, PC, feudal baron of Okehampton, feudal baron of Plympton, of Tiverton Castle, Okehampton Castle and Colcombe Castle all in Devon, was a grandson of King Edward IV, nephew of the queen consort, Elizabeth of York and a first cousin of King Henry VIII. Henry Courtenay was a close friend of Henry VIII, having "been brought up of a child with his grace in his chamber".
Elizabeth Stafford was an English noblewoman.
Anne Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon was an English noble. She was the daughter of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and Lady Catherine Woodville. She was first the wife of Sir Walter Herbert and then George Hastings, 1st Earl of Huntingdon, and served in the household of King Henry VIII's daughter, the future Queen Mary I.
George Hastings, 1st Earl of Huntingdon, KB was an English nobleman.
Robert Radcliffe, 10th Baron Fitzwalter, 1st Earl of Sussex, KG, KB, PC, also spelt Radclyffe, Ratcliffe, Ratcliff, etc., was a prominent courtier and soldier during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII who served as Chamberlain of the Exchequer and Lord Great Chamberlain.
Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset was an English peer, courtier, soldier and landowner of the House of Grey.
Lady Elizabeth Stafford was an English aristocrat. She was the eldest daughter of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Lady Eleanor Percy. By marriage she became Duchess of Norfolk. Her abusive marriage to Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, created a public scandal.
Ralph Neville, 4th Earl of WestmorlandKG, was an English peer and soldier. He was the grandson of Ralph Neville, 3rd Earl of Westmorland, and the father of Henry Neville, 5th Earl of Westmorland.
Elizabeth Tilney, Countess of Surrey was an English heiress who became the first wife of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. She served successively as a lady-in-waiting to two Queen consorts, namely Elizabeth Woodville, wife of King Edward IV, and later as Lady of the Bedchamber to that Queen's daughter, Elizabeth of York, the wife of King Henry VII. She stood as joint godmother to Princess Margaret Tudor at her baptism.
Buckingham's rebellion was a failed but significant uprising, or collection of uprisings, of October 1483 in England and parts of Wales against Richard III of England.
Mary Hungerford, Baroness Botreaux, Hungerford and Moleyns was the daughter of Sir Thomas Hungerford and Anne, daughter of Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland.
Richard Neville, 2nd Baron Latimer KB of Snape, North Yorkshire, was an English soldier and peer. He fought at the battles of Stoke and Flodden.