Francis Lovel KG (1456 - aft. 1488)

Ancestors

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Biography

Sir Francis Lovel, 1st Viscount Lovel, K.G. (1456 – after 1488 d.s.p).[1][2] married Anne (Agnes) FitzHugh,[3] dau. of Henry, Lord FitzHugh.^{[citation needed]} They had no children and Francis' sister Joan, became his heir.[4]

Lovell and Stafford Insurrection

Lord Francis Lovell and Humphrey Stafford of Grafton, were both among those attainted in 1485^[1][2]by the first Parliament of Henry VII. ^[3][4][5]

Lord Lovell and Humphrey Stafford were prominent supporters of Richard III.^[3] Lovell and Humphrey Stafford hoped to restore a Yorkist monarchy.^[5][6]

Francis Lovell and Humphrey Stafford first sought sanctuary at Colchester Abbey after the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.^[6] Henry's spies tracked them down and they escaped sanctuary with Lovell fleeing to the Yorks in exile in Flanders.^[5]

The Stafford brothers, Humphrey and his brother Thomas, led a rebellion in Worcester. The brothers found sanctuary in Abingdon Abbey at Culham^[6] on 11 May 1486. The Staffords were forcibly removed from the abbey on the night of 14 May.^[5][7]

They were tried before the Court of King's Bench, and the justices ruled that sanctuary was not applicable in cases of treason. It was ordered that Humphrey was to be executed,^[3][7] but his younger brother, Thomas Stafford, was convicted^[6] but pardoned on the grounds that he had been misled by his elder brother, but lost most of his property.^[5] His son, Humphrey, later recovered some of his fathers lands.^[3]

Sir Humphrey was condemned to the statutory death of a traitor on 5 July 1486 and executed on July 8th. ^[5]

Humphrey was executed on 8 July 1486 at Tyburn, and was buried in the church of the Grey Friars in London.^[1][2]

There was speculation concerning the severity of the execution. The severity of the offense and his claim of sanctuary, were debated by the judges with witnesses. The Holy Bible was entered as additional justification for the sentence. From the Latin below, he was dragged through the city of London to Tyburn hill where he was hanged and cut down, then beheaded and quartered. Typically his head was put on a spike and displayed, and his quartered body displayed in four rebel towns as a reminder to the people. One source says he was not disemboweled.^[8]

The judges made this pronouncement in Latin:

So by consent of all the Judges of England : " Idem Humfridus adjudicatus fuit q'd iterum reducatur Turri London et abinde ponatur super quod- dam herdillum et trahatur per medium civitatis London et sic usque Tiburnum et ibidem per collum suspendatur et ante mortem conscindatur et caput abscindatur et corpus ejus divi- datur in quatuor partes et mittatur ad voluntatem regis et Deus misereatur anime ejus, &C 1 ."^[8]

7 Aug 1486 a Commission was appointed to inquiry about lands and properties of those attained in rebellion.^[9]

Lord Lovell returned to England with a force led by Lambert Simnel.^[6] They were defeated at the Battle of Stoke on 16 June 1487. Nearly all the rebel leaders were killed including 4000 of the rank and file. Lovell disappeared and several explanations were given as to what happened to him.^[10]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Douglas Richardson. Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 5 vols., ed. Kimball G. Everingham, (Salt Lake City, Utah: the author, 2013), Vol. III, pages 240-242, HASTANG 15 & 16, Humphrey Stafford. See also WikiTree's source page for Magna Carta Ancestry.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Douglas Richardson. Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 4 vols, ed. Kimball G. Everingham. 2nd edition. Salt Lake City: the author, 2011. Vol. I, page 119, BASSET #11, Humphrey Stafford. See also WikiTree's source page for Magna Carta Ancestry.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3} Collections for a History of Staffordshire. New Series, Vol. XI. (London: Harrison and Sons, 1908). Online at Archive.org, page 10.
4. ↑ 'Henry VII: November 1485', in Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, ed. Chris Given-Wilson, et al. (Woodbridge, 2005), British History Online, accessed 5 March 2021.
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5} Seward, Desmond. The Last White Rose: The Secret Wars of the Tudors. Online with log-in page 25 (citations not checked).
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4} Wagner, John A. Encyclopedia of the War of the Roses. 2001. ABC Printers. Santa Barbara, Calif. Pages 151-152. Google Books: Lovell-Stafford Uprising (1486)
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1} C. H. Williams. "The Rebellion of Humphrey Stafford in 1486" in The English Historical Review, Vol. 43, No. 170 (Apr. 1928), pp. 181-189. Oxford University Press. Online at JSTOR.
8. ↑ ^{8.0 8.1} Willis Bund, J. W. (John William). A selection of cases from the state trials. Publication date 1879-1882. Cambridge University Press. Pages 42-45.Stafford Trial
9. ↑ Campbell, Rev. William, Ed. Materials for A History of the Reign of Henry VII. Vol. I. Printed 1873 by Her Majesty's Stationery office, London. Archive.org.
10. ↑ Temperley, Gladys. Henry VII. Printed by Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston. 1914. Page 65.Lovell disappeared.

• Anderson, James. A Genealogical History of the House of Yvery (H. Woodfall, 1742) Vol. 1, Page 288-90

• "The Stapeltons of Carlton," (1884). The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 8, pp. 254. Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Association. Google Books.[5]

• Wikipedia: Francis Lovell, 1st Viscount Lovell

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