Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stafford, William (1593-1684)
STAFFORD, WILLIAM (1593–1684), pamphleteer, born in Norfolk in 1593, was the son of William Stafford (1554–1612) [q. v.], by his wife Anne, daughter of Thomas Gryme of Antingham, Norfolk. He matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 8 Nov. 1611, graduated B.A. on 4 July 1614, and was created M.A. on 5 March 1617–18. On the death of his uncle, Sir John Stafford, in 1624, he succeeded to the estate of Marlwood Park in Thornbury, Gloucestershire, and, according to Wood, was at one time a member of the House of Commons (perhaps he was the W.S., member for Stamford in 1661). He was the author of ‘The Reason of the War, with the Progress and Accidents thereof, written by an English Subject’ (London, 1646, 4to). He writes as a moderate parliamentarian, and evinces great desire for peace on the basis of a constitutional monarchy. In the preface he mentions that parts of his work had been published in the previous year ‘in much imperfection and some haste.’ Wood conjectured that this treatise might be identical with a pamphlet entitled ‘An Orderly and Plaine Narration of the Beginnings and Causes of this Warre. Also a Conscientious Resolution against the Warre on the Parliament Side’ (1644, 4to). The works are, however, entirely different, and the latter publication, which was written by a staunch royalist, bitterly attacks the action of parliament. Stafford lived to a great age, and was buried at Thornbury on 4 July 1684. By his wife, Ursula Moore, he was the father of John, and the grandfather of Richard Stafford [q. v.]
[Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 378–9; Fosbroke's Hist. of Gloucestershire, 1807, ii. 131; Notes and Queries, III. ix. 375–6; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 14409, f. 307.]