♀Elizabeth Stafford

Elizabeth Stafford was an English noblewoman of the fifteenth century who married Richard Beauchamp, later the 2nd Lord Beauchamp of Powick^W, in Worcestershire. She was the sixteenth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Anne Beauchamp (died 1534).

Marriage and family

Elizabeth is said to have been a daughter of Sir Humphrey Stafford of Grafton, in Worcestershire, and his wife, Eleanor Aylesbury. On 27 January 1446/7, by special license, Richard and Elizabeth Stafford were married in the private chapel at Beauchamp’s Court, in Alcester, Warwickshire. The bridegroom was about eleven years old. The couple had three daughters, Elizabeth, Anne and Margaret; Anne, the second, married Richard Lygon of Madresfield.

Her husband’s later years

In 1471 her husband held the city of Gloucester for King Edward IV against Queen Margaret of Anjou, and in April 1475 he succeeded his father as Lord Beauchamp of Powick. Richard died at Broomhill, in Kent, on 19 January 1502/3 without a surviving son, and his barony died with him. His lands were divided among his heirs, their daughter Anne and the sons of her two sisters.

Notes

Sources

Her parentage, marriage and daughters are from Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry (2005), p. 678, which calls her the daughter of “Humphrey Stafford, Knt., of Grafton, Worcestershire, by Eleanor, daughter of Thomas Aylesbury, Knt.”, and pp. 46–47, which list her among the children of that couple. G.E.C., Complete Peerage, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (1912), p. 47, names her “Elizabeth, da. of Sir Humphrey Stafford” and gives the same wedding day, in the private chapel at Beauchamp’s Court. Her husband’s age at the wedding follows from both works, which make him forty in 1475. His life, death and heirs are from the same pages.

Dates

Neither work gives her birth or death. Richardson dates her parents’ marriage license 2 January 1423/4.

Her name

Burke’s Peerage (1869), under Beauchamp, calls her Eleanor, daughter of Sir Humphry Stafford, and gives her husband’s death as 1496. Richardson and Complete Peerage name her Elizabeth.