Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, was a prominent English nobleman who lived during the tumultuous Wars of the Roses period in the late 15th century. He played a vital role in the politics of his time and is known for his seemingly constant allegiance shifting.
He is perhaps best known for his failed rebellion against King Richard III, which led to his imprisonment, trial, and execution for treason. Buckingham was a powerful man with a lofty title, and in a rapidly changing and unstable world that was a dangerous place to be.
None of this seemingly mattered to Shakespeare. In his Richard III Buckingham is a scheming toady, an odious and wholly complicit villain who assists Richard of Gloucester as he murders and deceives his way to the crown.
Shakespeare was not above a little creative license in his works. Was Buckingham everything he led his audience to believe?
Villain? Hero? Both?
Henry Stafford was born on 4 September 1455. He was the only son of Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Stafford, and Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Stafford. Little is known about his early years except that his father died when he was just 3 years old.
When his father died in 1458 Henry inherited, becoming the Earl of Stafford and being made a ward of King Edward IV. A year later he was made the Duke of Buckingham when his grandfather, Humphrey Stafford, died at the Battle of Northampton, a major battle of the Wars of the Roses.
At the age of ten Henry was married to Catherine Woodville, the youngest sister of the King’s wife, Elizabeth Woodville. The two went on to have five children and remained married until Stafford’s death in 1483.
So why is Henry Stafford remembered today and why did Shakespeare make him a major (and vilified) character in his play, Richard III? Well, it all stems from the role Stafford played in the Wars of the Roses.
Thanks to his noble blood Stafford, along with the King’s brother Richard of Gloucester, was an influential figure at the Yorkist court of King Edward IV, the man who had given him his titles and looked over him after his father’s death. When Edward died in 1483 Stafford faced a dilemma: whose claim to the throne should he support?
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One would have expected Stafford to support the succession of his late King and side with one of Edward’s living sons, either Edward V or Richard of Shrewsbury. Stafford however betrayed the royal family and sided with Edward IV’s younger brother, the Duke of Gloucester.
With Stafford’s help, the Duke succeeded in claiming the throne and became known as Richard III. But rather than sticking with Richard, Stafford soon chose to change sides again. He formed an alliance with Henry Tudor (who would later become King Henry VII) whose mother, Margaret Beaufort, was actively promoting him as an alternative to Richard III.
Stafford led an unsuccessful rebellion against Richard in Henry Tudor’s name after raising his own militia from his estates in Wales. It seems Stafford felt he would easily win, but in the event said rebellion was, in all honesty, rather underwhelming.
Stafford had to march his men from Wales into England in order to meet Richard’s army, which meant crossing the Wye and Severn rivers. Unfortunately, these both happened to be flooded. After waiting for ten days Stafford’s men abandoned him and he was forced to flee to Shropshire in disguise.
Murderer or Avenger
Stafford’s time as a fugitive didn’t last long. He was quickly betrayed by a former servant and brought back to London. He was briefly held in the Tower of London and “interrogated” before being charged with treason against Richard III.
Stafford was tried and found guilty. After a short stint as a prisoner, he was executed on November 2, 1483. He was beheaded in the courtyard between two Inns in Salisbury marketplace.
He was given an anonymous burial and his burial place remains unknown to this day. It is thought Stafford may lay inside a tomb in the parish church at Britford, but this has never been confirmed.
So much for the history. But Henry Stafford also appears as a major character in Shakespeare’s Richard III. He’s portrayed as a duplicitous and treacherous character who helps Richard III seize the throne of England but later turns against him and supports the claim of Henry Tudor.
Historically, this sounds pretty accurate, although Shakespeare does take some liberties with the historical record. In the play, Stafford stays loyal to Richard III until he is ordered to kill the Princes in the Tower.
The Princes in the Tower were the two sons of Edward IV who were held in the Tower of London after Richard III came to power. The disappearance of the boys is one of history’s great unsolved mysteries, and the murderer has never been revealed.
In reality, Stafford’s real reasons for separating from Richard aren’t known, with some historians describing them as obscure. The historical record shows that he was well-treated by Richard and seemingly had little reason to switch sides.
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Some historians agree with Shakespeare’s take that Stafford sided against Richard due to the Princes in the Tower. He was either tasked with killing the boys himself or discovered their murder and was so shocked by the king’s actions that he decided to betray him.
This view paints Stafford in a more flattering light. Rather than being an ambitious noble with a habit of betraying kings, he’s just a man trying to do the right thing.
The only problem is some historians believe it was actually Stafford who murdered the princes. On both sides of his family, Stafford was a direct descendant of Edward III (four kings back from Edward IV, if you’re keeping count).
It has been postulated that he may have killed the boys with the hopes of eventually betraying both Richard and Henry and placing himself on the throne. This would have been lofty ambition indeed, surpassing even Richard III in his scheming and Henry VII is the tenuous nature of his claim.
No one really knows who had the princes murdered. It seems unlikely though that if it was Stafford, he acted alone. When he was executed in 1483, he was completely disgraced.
This would have been a prime time for Richard to clear his own name by adding the murder of the princes to the already disgraced Stafford’s rap sheet. But he didn’t. This suggests that Richard feared drawing attention to Stafford’s potential role in the boys’ deaths risked implicating him or one of his allies.
A True Student of Machiavelli
So, did Henry Stafford deserve Shakespeare’s scorn? It’s hard to say. Hundreds of years after his death, there’s still so much we don’t know.
If he was truly a child killer, then obviously he deserves Shakespeare’s scorn. Likewise, if he was a career turncoat who rose through the ranks by betraying kings, it’s also hard to root for him.
But if he betrayed Richard after learning of the deaths of the Princes in the Tower? Well, that’s a different story. If that’s the case then maybe we, and Shakespeare, should cut him some slack.
This narrative twist is given prominence in Richard III, and Shakespeare shows Richard III’s unraveling mind and rampant distrust of those around him as the reason for Buckingham’s alienation. Given this it would seem fitting to have Stafford portrayed as ultimately sympathetic. But he is not.
And, in the end, we’ll likely never know the truth. There was so much political intrigue and backstabbing going on during Stafford’s lifetime that the truth is long buried. We’ll likely never know the truth or if Stafford was truly the villain of his story, or the hero.
Top Image: Buckingham in Shakespeare is a cruel and duplicitous man, but Shakespeare may have misrepresented the real-life Duke. Source: peopleimages.com / Adobe Stock.
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