Michael Hicks has noted that Buckingham was one of the few Lancastrian loyalists who was never accused by the Yorkists of being an "evil councillor", even though he was—in Hicks's words—"the substance and perhaps the steel within the ruling regime". Although Buckingham was not attainted when the Duke of York's son, the Earl of March, took the throne as King Edward IV in 1461, Buckingham's grandson Henry became a royal ward, which gave the King control of the Stafford estates during the young duke's minority. Henry Stafford entered into his estates in 1473 but was executed by Edward's brother Richard—by then King, and against whom Henry had rebelled—in November 1483.