Sir Richard Stafford the eldest son, married Maud daughter and heir of Richard Lovell, Esq., by Elizabeth daughter and coheir of Sir Guy de Briene, knt. By her he had one child only, a daughter, named Avice, ob. 3 June, 1457, "a great heiress," married as his second wife, to James Butler, fifth Earl of Ormonde, created Earl of Wiltshire and K.G. in 1449. He was also Lord Treasurer of England and a staunch adherent of the Red Rose, was taken prisoner after the battle of Towton, by Richard Salkeld, Esq., and beheaded at Newcastle 1 May, 1461. Sir Richard died about 1427, his wife afterward married John Fitzalan, thirteenth Earl of Arundel, K.G., ob. 12 June, 1435, by whom she had a son Humphrey, fourteenth Earl. She died 19 May, 1436, and was buried with her first husband in the Chapel of St. Anne in the Abbey Church of Abbotsbury.
Sir John Stafford, second son, married Anne daughter of William the third and last Lord Bottreaux, ob. 14 May, 1462, by his wife Elizabeth daughter of John, Lord Beaumont. By her he had one child only, Humphrey, who died in Scotland 6 Aug., 1461. Sir John died 5 Nov., 1427, and was buried with his kindred at Abbotsbury Abbey.
The presumed tomb with effigies of Lord and Lady Bottreaux, the parents of Anne, is in the church of North-Cadbury, Somerset. Its original position was in the Founder's place, on the north side of the chancel, but it is now relegated to a corner of the tower at the west end. The knight is in complete plate armour, the lady in richly ornamented horned head-dress, and long robes. A canopy is over their heads. Lord Bottreaux married first Elizabeth, daughter of John, Lord Beaumont, she died about 37 Henry VI. (1459). By her he had two sons and two daughters. William, who died before 1434; Reginald, ob. 1420; Anne, married to Sir John Stafford; and Margaret, who died 7 Feb., 1478-9, eventually sole heiress to the large property and titles of Bottreaux and Mules, married to Robert, Lord Hungerford, ob. 14 May, 1459. Lord Bottreaux married secondly Margaret daughter of Thomas, Lord Roos. He died seized of fifty manors, in the western counties, among them North-Cadbury, which they possessed through the heiress of Mules, and in that church (which they probably rebuilt), by his will he ordered himself to be buried. Reginald, the second son, and brother of Anne, was buried at Aller church, near Langport, which parish was part of the family property. On a flat stone formerly in the pavement of the chancel, but now set upright, on a ledger-line is incised the following inscription,—
Hic jacet Roginaldus filius William dom' de Botreaux qui obiit xxx die mensis Julii anno dom' mo cccc xx
In the centre is a shield,—A griffin rampant (Bottreaux), impaling semée of fleurs-de-lys, a lion rampant (Beaumont).
William Stafford, Esq., third son, was of Suthwyke; he married Katharine daughter of Sir John Chidiock, knt., by whom he had one son Humphrey, subsequently created Lord Stafford of Suthwyke and Earl of Devon. More with regard to him presently. William Stafford, together with his relative Sir Humphrey Stafford of Grafton, knt., Commander of the King's forces, were both killed in the encounter with Jack Cade and the Kentish insurgents (who came off victorious), at Sevenoaks, 18 June, 1450. His wife married secondly Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, Cornwall, knt., ob. 12 Nov., 1473, and thirdly Sir Roger Lewkenor, knt., ob. 4 Aug., 1478. She died 10 April, 1479.
Alice, their only daughter, married first her neighbour Sir Edmond Cheney, of Broke, Wilts, and by him had two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne.[35] Secondly she married Walter Tailboys of Newton-Kyme, Yorkshire, ob. 13 Apl., 1444; by him she had one daughter Alianore, married to Thomas Strangeways, Esq., by whom she had two sons Henry and Thomas, and one daughter Joan. Thomas Strangeways died in 1484, his wife Alianore 2 April, 1502, and both were buried in the Lady Chapel of the Abbey church of Abbotsbury.
Our thoughts now concentrate on the last—most greatly honoured, yet withal most unfortunate—representative of Stafford of Suthwyke, who rose to the highest dignity conferred on the family, but whose possession of the distinction was indeed short, and his life still more suddenly and disastrously extinguished.
This was Humphrey, the only son of William Stafford of Suthwyke, killed at Sevenoaks in 1450. His cousin Humphrey, son of his uncle Sir John Stafford, dying in Scotland in 1461, he became the sole male heir left remaining. He was born about 1440, and appears to have identified himself with the cause of the White Rose, and to have been in much favour with Edward IV.
Stafford is accused of having been ill-disposed toward the Courtenays, Earls of Devon, who were zealous adherents of the Red Rose; naturally so, for they were descendants of that branch of the royal blood, and with such devotion, that the three brothers, Thomas, Henry, and John, who were the last representatives of the elder descent of that illustrious house, lost their lives, either in the battlefield or on the scaffold, and their property by confiscation, in support of its claims. They were the sons of Thomas Courtenay, first of that name, Earl of Devon, who died 3 Feb., 1458, by his wife Margaret Beaufort, second daughter of John, Earl of Somerset, eldest son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, by his third wife Katharine Swynford.