So perished Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Devon, still quite a young man, for he could not have been more than thirty years of age,—"he enjoyed," continues Cleaveland, "but a little time that honour and estate which he got by procuring the death of its right owner, and he was in derision called The Earl of three months standing and no more."
The Earl married Isabel daughter of Sir John Barry, knt.,—and after his death she remarried with Sir Thomas Bourchier, knt., fifth son of Henry Bourchier, second Earl of Ewe, and 30 June, 1461, created Earl of Essex, who was also Lord Treasurer of England, and who died in 1483,—by his wife Isabel, daughter of Richard, Duke of York, and sister to King Edward IV., another strange conjunction, her thus marrying a nephew of the man who had so vindictively beheaded her first husband. But sentiment had little place in those days; ambition, station, and love of rule were the things sought after, all else seems to have been forgotten.
Weever gives the following inscription as occurring in the church of Ware, Herts, where both herself and second husband appear to have been buried,—
Hic iacet Thomas Bourchier miles filius Henrici comitis Essex; ac Isabella uxor eius nuper comitissa Devon, filia et heres Johannis Barry militis: qui obiit ... 1491 et Isabella ob. 1 die Marcij 1488, quorum animabus &c.
Whereon the old 'epitaphist' is induced to further moralize,—
"This Isabell, the daughter and heire of Sir John Barry, knight, was, when the said Thomas married her, the widow of Humfrey Lord Stafford, of Southwike, sonne of William Stafford of Hooke, Esquire, created Earle of Devon, by King Edward the fourth; to whom the King gave all honours, manors, Castles, &c., which were Thomas Courtneys, the fourteenth Earle of Devon: who neverthelesse, grew ingratefull to King Edward his advancer, in revolting from him at the battaile of Banbury, for which cowardise (hee being apprehended) was without processe executed at Bridgewater, the seventeenth of August, anno. 1469, having been Earle but three moneths."
At his death the ill-gotten estates of the Courtenays that he possessed, were again forfeited, and Edward IV. gave a considerable portion of them to another eminent west-countryman John, Lord Dinham, and to other grantees, but the succession failed in nearly all the recipients, and Henry VII., in the first year of his reign, made void all these grants by Edward IV., and restored both the title and the estates to their rightful owners.
Here, before we finally dismiss our thoughts on the signal catastrophe that ended the dynasty of Stafford of Suthwyke, we dwell awhile on the singular parallelism of characters and incidents that are presented to us in each of our little narratives relative to the distinguished but unfortunate house of Stafford.
Both the prominent factors of our unpretending histories fell victims to the vengeance of the White Rose, the result of defection doubtless, though of differing kind. Each experienced the same unhappy fate, Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Devon, was sent to the scaffold at Bridgwater, by the peremptory mandate of Edward IV., Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, suffered in similar summary manner at Salisbury, by the relentless order of Richard III.
Two eminent ecclesiastics of the highest dignity are also associated with their relations. John Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord Chancellor to Henry VI., finds place in the one, and John Morton, Cardinal-Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord Chancellor to Henry VII., appears in the other.