page_title: Humphrey Stafford (died 1442)
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: Humphrey Stafford (died 1442) / Later life
caption_attribution_description: Tithe Barn, Abbotsbury
context_page_description: Sir Humphrey Stafford "With the Silver Hand", of Hooke in Dorset and of Southwick in the parish of North Bradley in Wiltshire was a member of the English gentry in the south west of England, where he was a Member of Parliament multiple times and an important royal official.
context_section_description: When his parents died in 1413 Stafford became a wealthy man; K.B. McFarlane assessed him as "wealthier and more worshipful" than many of the lower-ranking barons of the period. He inherited both the Stafford estates and also those from the Maltravers family, which were centred around Hooke. The Stafford inheritance, however, was scattered over ten English counties and worth about £570 a year, while those in Dorset were assessed in the 1412 tax as around £660 (and so was taxed at the highest rate). His new wealth enabled him to improve the marriage prospects of his daughters, one of whom soon married James, a nephew of Thomas, Lord Berkeley. This marriage gave the Staffords an interest when Berkeley inheritance dispute broke out and the whole Berkeley inheritance was claimed by the earl of Warwick. This was refuted by James (later Baron Berkeley), whose claim was backed by Humphrey, and who had been nominated heir by Thomas, Lord Berkeley.
  Stafford attended the coronation of Queen Catherine of Valois in 1421, in his role of King's knight, and in the same period, spent time defending his estates (one of his Shropshire manors, for example, had been seized by Welshmen in the employ of Edmund, Earl of March). In doing so, he appears to have taken full advantage of the influential position of his brother, John, on the King's Council. According to Roskell and Woodger, "relations between the two were, despite John's illegitimate birth, always intimate." They were also profitable: in 1431 they were jointly granted custody of two-thirds of the Dunster Castle, and later, the manor of Tothill in Lincolnshire, and the next year they received Chiselborough manor in Somerset.
  Humphrey Stafford wrote his will at the end of 1441; particular bequests included Abbotsbury, Cerne and Sherborne Benedictine Abbeys, the Cistercian Abbey at Forde, and other friaries and priories. His only surviving son, William, received plate; he also left £100 for poor relief. His brother John received arras, flagons and some religious icons, and was also appointed executor of the will.
  Humphrey died on 27 May 1442; he was buried in Abbotsbury Abbey alongside his parents, wife, and those of his children who had predeceased him.
caption: Abbotsbury Abbey in 2008
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