Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1402 – 10 July 1460) was an English nobleman and a military commander who fought for the Lancastrian King Henry VI during the Wars of the Roses, where he was killed at the Battle of Northampton. Through his mother he had royal blood as a great-grandson of King Edward III, and from his father, he inherited the earldom of Stafford. He joined the English campaign in France with King Henry V in 1420. Following the king's death two years later, he became a councillor for the nine-month-old King Henry VI. Stafford acted as a peacemaker during the 1430s, when Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester vied with Cardinal Beaufort for political supremacy. He took part in the eventual arrest of Gloucester in 1447. He was the King's bodyguard and chief negotiator during Jack Cade's Rebellion of 1450. In 1455 he fought for the King in the first battle of the Wars of the Roses, at St Albans, where they were both captured by the Yorkists. He spent the last years of his life attempting to mediate between the Yorkist and Lancastrian factions. (Full article...)