262 REIxT-ROLL OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. the erle of StaflPorde made no semblant of the dethe of his sonne, wherein all the barons reputed hym right sage." ' The alliance between the Staffords and the blood royal of England, which will be presently noticed, was a circumstance on which the family placed a due value ; the royal arms formed the first quarter of their coat-armour. But this connexion, by placing them too prominently as rivals of the crown, led, in great measure, both the second and third Dukes to the scaffold. There can be little question that these noblemen aimed at sovereign power, and Richard III. held the throne by far too questionable a title to tolerate the existence of so for- midaljle a rival as Henry, the second Duke. Humphrey, the sixth Earl of Stafford, — whose rental is before us — was the son of Edward, or. Edmond, the fifth Earl of Stafford, slain at Shrewsbury in 1403, by Anne, daughter of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, the youngest son of Edward III., and who liimself bore for awhile the title of Buckingham, afterwards conferred upon his grandson. In these two descents we may mark how rapidly a family may gain strength and power by its alhances. The Duke of Gloucester married Eleanor, the eldest daughter and co-heir of Humphi-ey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, Essex, and Northampton, constable of England. The Duke's daughter, the before-named Lady Anne, became heiress to her brother Humphre}^ who died of the plague, childless. She inherited also her mother's moiety of the large estates of the Bohuns, and in her will, doubtless conscious of her dignities, styles herself " Countess of Stafford, Buckingham, Hereford, and Northampton, and Lady of Brecknock." We possess but httle infomiation as to the first Duke. In the 2nd of Henry VI. he did homage and had hvery of his lands, as also of those which had descended to him by the death of his uncle, Hugh, Lord Bourchier, S.P. In the .9th of Henry VI. he attended the king at Paris, where in the following year Henry was crowned. Two years afterwards he was appointed Captain of the Town and Marches of Calais. In an indenture, (22nd Hen. VI.) 1443, he is styled " the Right Mighty Prince Humphrey, Earl of Buck- ' Froiesai-t's Chronicles, b^nsUted by Lord Berners, vol. iL p. 24.
