an end to his hesitation. It was decided to overthrow Richard in favour of a union of the two roses by a marriage between the Earl of Richmond and Elizabeth of York. Henry was invited over from Brittany and a general rising arranged for 18 Oct. (Rot. Parl. vi. 245). On the 11th of that month Richard, at Lincoln, proclaimed Buckingham a traitor, the ‘most untrue creature living.’ At the appointed time Buckingham moved eastwards with a Welsh force into Herefordshire; but he could get no further, and the Wye and Severn were in high flood, long remembered as ‘the Duke of Buckingham's water.’ They were impassable even if his distant kinsman, Humphrey Stafford of Grafton, had not been holding all the fords. Sir Thomas Vaughan [q. v.] of Tretower cut off his retreat into the march (ib.; Cont. Croyl. Chron. p. 568). After ten days of weary waiting Buckingham's army dispersed, and he fled northwards in disguise to Shropshire; a price of 1,000l. was placed on his head; a retainer, Ralph Bannister of Lacon Park, near Wem, sheltered him for a time, but was not above claiming the reward for giving him up when his whereabouts was discovered (Ramsay, ii. 507). His lurking-place in a poor hut is said to have been betrayed by the unusual provision of victuals carried to it (Cont. Croyl. Chron. p. 568). He was brought to the court at Salisbury on 1 Nov. by John Mytton, the sheriff of Shropshire. Short shrift was allowed him. A confession failed to procure him an audience of the king, and next day, though a Sunday, he was beheaded in the market-place. His great estates were confiscated.
Buckingham married (February 1466) Catherine Woodville, daughter of Richard, first earl Rivers, and sister of Edward IV's queen. His widow married, before November 1485, Jasper Tudor, duke of Bedford, after whose death (21 Dec. 1495) she took a third husband, Sir Richard Wingfield. She bore Buckingham three sons and two daughters. The sons were: Edward, who became third duke, and is separately noticed; Henry, afterwards Earl of Wiltshire (1509–1523); and Humphrey, who died young. The daughters were: Elizabeth, who married about 1505 Robert Radcliffe, lord Fitzwalter (afterwards Earl of Sussex) [q. v.]; and Anne, who married, first, Sir Walter Herbert, and, secondly (about December 1509), George Hastings, earl of Huntingdon.
[Rotuli Parliamentorum and Rymer's Fœdera, original ed.; Continuation of the Croyland Chronicle in Gale's Scriptores, 1691; More's Richard III; Hall's and Fabyan's Chronicles, ed. Ellis; Polydore Vergil, Camden Society; Dugdale's Baronage; the Complete Peerage by G. E. C[okayne]; Gairdner's Life and Reign of Richard III; Ramsay's Lancaster and York.]
STAFFORD, HENRY, first Baron Stafford (1501–1563), only son of Edward Stafford, third duke of Buckingham [q. v.], by his wife Alianore, daughter of Henry Percy, fourth earl of Northumberland, was born at Penshurst on 18 Sept. 1501. Until his father's attainder he was styled the Earl of Stafford. In May 1516 Wolsey advised Buckingham to bring Stafford to court, and, in accordance with the cardinal's suggestion, he married, apparently on 16 Feb. 1518–19, Ursula, daughter of Margaret Pole, countess of Salisbury [q. v.], and sister of Reginald Pole [q. v.] (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, ed. Brewer, iii. 498). In 1520 Stafford was one of those appointed to ride with Henry VIII at the meeting with Francis I, and he was also present at the subsequent meeting with Charles V. By his father's attainder in 1521 he lost his titles and estates, but on 20 Sept. 1522 he was granted by letters patent, confirmed by act of parliament (Statutes of the Realm, iii. 269–70), the manors held by his father in Staffordshire, Cheshire, and Shropshire. His connection with the ‘White Rose’ and the Poles laid him open to suspicion, and he suffered from the enmity of Wolsey. On the cardinal's fall, Stafford petitioned the king to be restored in blood, and stated that he had been compelled by Wolsey to break up his home in Sussex (Penshurst), and, having ‘no fit habitation,’ to board for the last four years with his wife and seven children at an abbey (Letters and Papers, iv. 6123). His petition for restoration was refused, but on 15 July 1531 he was granted the castle and manor of Stafford, and in 1532 he was made K.B. The latter honour he declined, preferring to pay a fine of 20l. He welcomed the ecclesiastical changes of Henry VIII, frequently entertained the visitors of the monasteries, petitioned for various dissolved houses, and was active in destroying ‘idols.’ In 1536 he was placed on the commission of the peace for Staffordshire and Shropshire, an appointment annually renewed till the end of the reign. When his sister, the Duchess of Norfolk [see Howard, Thomas II, (1473–1554)], quarrelled with her husband, Stafford refused to allow her to reside in his house.
Stafford was elected member of Edward VI's first parliament for the town of Stafford (November 1547). The same parliament passed an act for his restoration in blood,
