Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby
Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby KG (around 1435 - 29 July 1504 ) was an English peer and statesman .
Life
Stanley came from the old English noble family of the Stanley . He was the son of Thomas Stanley, 1st Baron Stanley and Joan Gousell and a descendant of King Edward I of England . As a squire of the English King Henry VI. around 1457 he married Eleanor Neville, sister of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick , leader of the Yorkists . His political position remained unclear. He did not take an active part in the Wars of the Roses , but was suspected of treason several times. In 1459 he inherited his father as 2nd Baron Stanley and King of Mann . In 1460 he fought at Henry's side in the Battle of Northampton , where the King beat him to Knight Bachelor on the battlefield . However, the victorious Yorkists hired him as Chief Justice of Chester and Flint , and he became an advisor to King Edward IV. In 1472 Stanley married Margaret Beaufort , mother of the future King Henry VII of England . After landing in England, Stanley remained neutral, though Richard III who had admitted him to the Order of the Garter in 1483 , had taken his eldest son George hostage while his younger brother William fought alongside the Tudor troops . It is said that after the battle of Bosworth Field (1485) he was said to have recovered Richard's crown from the battlefield and put Henry on his head; he was rewarded on October 27, 1485 with the title Earl of Derby . Stanley was rewarded by Henry VII for further support with land holdings in Lancashire and received the right from the king on August 2, 1490 to secure this property by building the fortress Greenhalgh Castle near Garstang .
From his first marriage, Thomas Stanley had three sons:
- Sir George Stanley KG († 1503), ⚭ Joan Lestrange, 9th Baroness Strange of Knockin
- Edward Stanley, 1st Baron Monteagle KG († 1523);
- James Stanley , Bishop of Ely .
Thomas Stanley outlived his eldest son and heir George by a few months, so that his eldest son, his grandson Thomas, succeeded him as Earl of Derby .
Thomas was the last to use the name King of the Isle of Man ( King of Mann ) - his descendants only called themselves Lord of the Isle of Man ( Lord of Mann ).
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Powicke & Fryde: Handbook of British Chronology. Second Edition, London, 1961, p. 424
- ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 2, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 12.
- ^ The Richard III Foundation, Inc. Thomas Stanley ( memento of October 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (richard111.com) engl.
- ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 1, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 17.
- ^ History of Greenhalg Castle. Retrieved January 5, 2019 .
literature
- James Tait: STANLEY, THOMAS, first Earl of Derby (1435? -1504) . In: Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 54, Smith, Elder & Co., London 1898.
Web links
- Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby, on thepeerage.com , accessed July 26, 2015.
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Thomas Stanley |
Baron Stanley King of Mann 1459-1504 |
Thomas Stanley |
| New title created |
Earl of Derby 1485-1504 |
Thomas Stanley |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stanley, Thomas, 1st Earl of Derby |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Thomas II Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby; Stanley, Thomas |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English statesman, first Earl of Derby and ruler of the Isle of Man |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1435 |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 29, 1504 |