Anne Stafford, Countess of Huntingdon

Born around 1483, Lady Anne Stafford was the daughter of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and Katherine Woodville[1]

Katherine was a sister of Elizabeth Woodville, Consort of Edward IV, making Anne a first cousin of Elizabeth of York.

Anne Stafford had two brothers, Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham,[2] and Henry Stafford, 1st Earl of Wiltshire; and a sister, Elizabeth Stafford, Countess of Sussex.[3]

In 1483, King Richard III executed Henry Stafford for treason. Anne's mother remarried to Jasper Tudor. In 1503, Anne married Sir Walter Herbert.

When Herbert died in 1507, Anne gave control of her jointure, which included Raglan Castle in Wales, to her brother, Edward. Anne went to live in her brother's household at Thornbury until her second marriage to George Hastings in 1509.[4]

In 1510, Anne was the subject of a sex scandal. Her brother had heard rumours that Anne was having an affair with Sir William Compton. On one occasion, Stafford found Compton in Anne's room. Compton was forced to take the sacrament to prove that he had not committed adultery. Hastings sent Anne to live in a convent 60 miles away from the royal court. There is no evidence that Anne and Compton committed adultery. However, in 1523 Compton took the unusual step of bequeathing land to Anne in his will, and directing his executors to include her in the prayers for his kin for which he had made provision in his will.[5]

Despite this scandal, Anne and Hastings apparently enjoyed a close, loving relationship. This was evidenced by a letter written to Anne by Hastings in 1525 which has been described as 'one of the most affectionate and charming letters of the period'.[6]

Anne Stafford married firstly, in 1503, Sir Walter Herbert (d. 16 September 1507),[7] an illegitimate[8] son of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke.[9] The marriage was childless.

She married secondly, in December 1509, George Hastings, 1st Earl of Huntingdon. They had five sons and three daughters:[7]

• Francis Hastings, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon, who married Katherine Pole (d. 23 September 1576), elder daughter of Henry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu, and by her had six sons, including Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, and George Hastings, 4th Earl of Huntingdon, and five daughters, including Frances, wife of Henry Compton, 1st Baron Compton.[10]
• Sir Thomas Hastings, who married, before October 1553, Winifred Pole (d. 22 February 1602), daughter of Henry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu, and Jane Neville, daughter of George Neville, 4th Baron Bergavenny. There were no issue of the marriage. After Sir Thomas Hastings' death, Winifred Pole married Sir Thomas Barrington (d.1581).[11]
• Edward Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings of Loughborough.
• Henry Hastings.
• William Hastings.
• Lady Dorothy Hastings, who married Sir Richard Devereux (d.1548), second son of Walter Devereux, 1st Viscount Hereford, and Mary Grey, the daughter of Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset. The eldest son of Walter Devereux, 1st Viscount Hereford, predeceased him, as did his second son, Sir Richard Devereux (d.1548). However Sir Richard Devereux and Dorothy Hastings had a son, Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, who was his grandfather's heir.[12]
• Lady Mary Hastings, who married Thomas Berkeley, 6th Baron Berkeley.[13]
• Lady Katherine Hastings.

• Anne is the protagonist of At the King's Pleasure by Kate Emerson.[14]
• In two 2007 episodes of the Showtime television series, The Tudors, Anne, portrayed by Anna Brewster, is presented as the 3rd Duke of Buckingham's daughter (she was his sister), and is involved not with Henry VIII but with a fictionalized version of the King's future brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. She is also shown as dying of the same sweating sickness that killed William Compton.
• Anne is a character in the Philippa Gregory novel, The Constant Princess.

• Cokayne, George Edward (1959). The Complete Peerage edited by Geoffrey H. White. XII (Part II). London: St Catherine Press.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Davies, C.S.L. (2008). "Stafford, Edward, third duke of Buckingham (1478–1521)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/26202. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Davies, C.S.L. (2004). "Stafford, Henry, second duke of Buckingham (1455–1483)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/26204. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Dockray, Keith (2004). "Stafford, Henry, earl of Wiltshire (c.1479–1523)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/70804. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Harris, Barbara J. (2002). English Aristocratic Women, 1450-1550. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Howell, A. Lloyd (2004). "Devereux, Walter, first Viscount Hereford (c.1489–1558)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/7567. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Maclean, Sir John (1883). The Berkeley Manuscripts, ed. Sir John Maclean. II. Gloucester.
• McGurk, J.J.N. (2004). "Devereux, Walter, first earl of Essex (1539–1576)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/7568. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Pollard, Albert Frederick (1898). "Edward Stafford (1478-1521)" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 53. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 446–7.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Everingham, Kimball G. (ed.). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families. II (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City. ISBN 1449966381.
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Everingham, Kimball G. (ed.). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families. III (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City. ISBN 144996639X.
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Everingham, Kimball G. (ed.). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families. IV (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City. ISBN 1460992709.