Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby, KG (1435 – 29 July 1504) was an English nobleman. He was the stepfather of Henry VII of England through his marriage to the King's mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort. He was the eldest son of Thomas Stanley, 1st Baron Stanley and Joan Goushill.
A landed magnate of immense wealth and power, particularly across the northwest of England where his authority went almost unchallenged, Stanley managed to remain in favour with successive kings throughout the Wars of the Roses, including King Richard III of England, who took Stanley's son as a hostage. Thomas Stanley took the side of Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. His estates included what is now Tatton Park in Cheshire, Lathom House in Lancashire, and Derby House in the City of London, now the site of the College of Arms.
Although the king for the early part of his career, Henry VI, was head of the House of Lancaster, Stanley's marriage to Eleanor, daughter of Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury (a descendant of Edward III) and sister of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick ('Warwick the Kingmaker') in the late 1450s constituted a powerful alliance with the House of York. This did him no harm, however, even after Warwick was toppled from power, and in 1472, with the House of York again occupying the English throne, he married his second wife Lady Margaret Beaufort, whose son, Henry Tudor, was the leading Lancastrian claimant. He was the last to use the style 'King of Mann', his successors opting for the safer 'Lord of Mann'. Among his notable close relatives were his brother Sir William Stanley and his nephews Sir John Savage and Thomas Savage, Archbishop of York.
Inheritance
After the death of his father in 1459, Stanley inherited his father's titles, including those of Baron Stanley and King of Mann as well as his extensive lands and offices in Cheshire and Lancashire. It was a formidable inheritance and gave him ample opportunity to gain experience in the leadership of men. At the same time, his father's prominence in the king's household had provided him with an early introduction to court where he was named among the squires of Henry VI in 1454. Nevertheless, in the febrile and bloodthirsty circumstances of the Wars of the Roses it was a position fraught with danger as rival claimants for the throne – successively the Houses of Lancaster and York – demanded, threatened or begged for the support of Stanley and his followers.
Lancaster vs York
The Stanleys had been among the earliest supporters of Henry Bolingbroke's bid to win the English throne for the House of Lancaster in 1399 and Stanley's great-grandfather Sir John Stanley, had been richly rewarded for his assistance. After some years of weak and ineffectual government led by the Lancastrian Henry VI, a challenge from the House of York broke out into open warfare in the 1450s in the War of the Roses.
In 1459, an accord between the Lancastrian and the Yorkist lords broke down, and the conflict lapped at the borders of the Stanleys' sphere of influence. With the Earl of Salisbury (Stanley's father-in-law) mobilising on behalf of the House of York, Queen Margaret of Anjou at Lichfield ordered Stanley to raise forces to intercept him. However, when the two armies met at the Battle of Blore Heath in 1459, though only a few miles away, Stanley kept his 2,000 men out of the fight. His brother, Sir William Stanley, who was certainly in the Yorkist army was subsequently attainted.
Yet by 1460, Lord Stanley had begun to cooperate with the Yorkist lords who by this time had possession of the King and ruled in his name, and he rapidly consolidated his association with the new regime. In the early 1460s, he joined his brother-in-law, Warwick, in the campaigns against the Lancastrian forces and Stanley was confirmed in his fees and offices as the new King, Edward IV, needed him to secure the north-west.
In the late 1460s, however, the coalition that had brought the Yorkist Edward to the throne was fracturing and Stanley found his loyalties divided once again. "The dramatic shifts in political fortune between 1469 and 1471, and their impact on the tangled networks of affinity and allegiance, are hard to unravel".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 2004.
When Warwick, fleeing before Edward in 1470, made his way to Manchester in the hope of support, Stanley was not forthcoming, but on Warwick's return, he lent him armed support in the restoration of the House of Lancaster and of Henry VI. Lord Stanley was soon forgiven for his disloyalty. After the restoration of Edward IV in 1471, he was appointed steward of the king's household and thereafter became a regular member of the royal council. Yet, the death of his first wife, Eleanor Neville at this period severed his connection with Warwick and the Nevilles and allowed in 1472 a marriage of still greater political significance. His new wife, Lady Margaret Beaufort, dowager Countess of Richmond, was the mother of Henry Tudor – potential heir of the House of Lancaster.
Militarily during this period, and now a stalwart of the Yorkist regime, Stanley led several hundred men in the expedition to France in 1475 and in 1482 served with a large company in the campaign of the Duke of Gloucester (later Richard III) in Scotland, playing a key role in the capture of Berwick upon Tweed.
After the unexpected death of Edward IV in 1483 and the accession of his twelve-year-old son Edward V, Stanley was among those who sought to maintain a balance of power between the young king's uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who was now Lord Protector, and his maternal family, the Woodvilles. (Stanley's own son and heir, George Stanley, Lord Strange was married to Joan Le Strange whose mother was Jacquetta Woodville, sister of Elizabeth Woodville, and made his wife a cousin of the new King, Edward V). When Gloucester attacked this group at a council meeting in June 1483, Stanley was wounded and imprisoned but at least spared the fate of Lord Hastings – that of summary execution. That month, Parliament declared Edward V and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York (the Princes in the Tower) illegitimate on the grounds that their father Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was bigamous, by way of a prior pre-contract of marriage with Eleanor Butler. The Duke of Gloucester was therefore declared king Richard III by public acclamation, later confirmed by Parliament under the Act Titulus Regius.
Apparently "in preparing the ground for the usurpation and in consolidating his position, Richard found it more expedient to appease than to alienate the house of Stanley". Thus, Lord Stanley was soon at liberty and continued as steward of the royal household, apparently flourishing at the heart of the new regime. He bore the great mace at Richard's coronation, while his wife carried the new queen's train. Richard stripped Stanley's wife, Margaret Beaufort, of all her titles and possession for her part "in compassyng and doyng Treason", but transferred all her properties to Stanley, effectively negating much of the punishment.
He was also appointed to the Order of the Garter, taking the stall vacated by the executed Lord Hastings. This commitment bore further fruit in the autumn of 1483, when a series of plots against the King coalesced into Buckingham's rebellion, a rising in southern and western England under the loose leadership of the Duke of Buckingham. When Richard rose to suppress the rebellion, Stanley and his brother William were at the King's side and were richly rewarded from the forfeited estates of the rebels and Stanley was appointed to Buckingham's position as Lord High Constable of England. Whilst Stanley might have had no other option than to act as Richard's loyal subject, it is conceivable that he may himself have become involved in the uprising. His wife, Margaret Beaufort, was a key conspirator, having brokered the marriage alliance between Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth of York and her son Henry Tudor.
Indeed, it was only by giving a solemn undertaking to Richard to keep his wife in custody and to end her intrigues that Stanley saved her from attainder and disgrace and presumably his own position at the same time. Richard was evidently well aware of the threat from this quarter since in the summer of 1485, when Stanley sought permission to leave the court and return to his northern fastness of Lathom, the king insisted that his son, George Stanley, Lord Strange, take his place at court as a token for his father's good behaviour.
The Battle of Bosworth
The Stanleys had been communicating with the exiled Henry Tudor for some time and Tudor's strategy of landing in Wales and heading east into central England depended on the acquiescence of Sir William Stanley, as Chamberlain of Chester and north Wales, and by extension on that of Lord Stanley himself. On hearing of the invasion, Richard ordered the two Stanleys to raise the men of the region in readiness to oppose the invader. However, once it was clear that Tudor was marching unopposed through Wales, Richard ordered Lord Stanley to join him without delay. According to the Croyland Chronicle, although Lord Stanley excused himself on the grounds of illness, the 'sweating sickness',Pronay and J. Cox, eds., The Crowland Chronicle Continuations, 1459–1486 (1986) by now Richard had firm evidence of the Stanleys' complicity. After an unsuccessful bid to escape from court, Lord Strange confessed that he and his uncle, Sir William Stanley, had conspired with Henry Tudor. Richard proclaimed him a traitor, and let it be known that Strange's life was a hostage for his father's loyalty in the coming conflict. Indeed, Richard allegedly issued orders for Strange's execution on the battlefield, although in the event these were never carried out. Lord Stanley's response to Richard's threat was reportedly laconic: "Sire, I have other sons".
Three armies followed each other into the midlands: Lord Stanley and his forces; then Sir William Stanley; and finally Henry Tudor and a host comprising Tudor retainers, dispossessed Lancastrian exiles and many men of Wales and Cheshire. Lord Stanley may have secretly met with Henry on the eve of the battle, but when the Stanleyites arrived south of the village of Market Bosworth on 22 August they took up a position independent of both the royal forces and the rebel army. In effect, the two brothers played similar roles to those they had played at the Battle of Blore Heath over a quarter of a century earlier. Lord Stanley took no direct part in the action but stood unmoving between the two armies and it was Sir William's decisive intervention that gave Henry the victory. After the despatch of Richard, who had gone into battle crowned, Polydore Vergil records that the fallen coronet was retrieved and placed by Lord Stanley on his stepson's head before his cheering troops, thereby emphasizing the critical role the Stanleys had played in bringing Henry Tudor to the throne.Polydore Vergil, Anglica Historia, Book XXV. 1512/13.
Further prizes
Henry demonstrated his gratitude to his "right dearly beloved father" by creating him Earl of Derby on 27 October 1485, and the following year confirmed him in office as Lord High Constable of England and High Steward of the Duchy of Lancaster, besides granting him other estates and offices. In 1486 Stanley also stood as godfather to Henry's eldest son, Arthur, Prince of Wales. Even so, at the time of the Lambert Simnel rising of 1487, there may have been some concern that the Stanleys were again hedging their bets, and "there was relief in the royal host when the Stanleyites came in at Nottingham".