[2] Christopher Willoughby, born in 1453,[3] was the second son of Sir Robert Willoughby (d. 30 May 1465) of Parham, Suffolk, and Cecily Welles, the daughter of Lionel de Welles, 6th Baron Welles (d. 29 March 1461), and his first wife, Jane Waterton, the daughter of Robert Waterton (d. 1425), esquire, of Methley, Yorkshire, by Cecily Fleming, daughter of Sir Robert Fleming of Woodhall.
His second cousin, Joan Welles, 9th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby, died about that time.
[2][10][11] According to some historians, the attainders were passed by Parliament in order to enable Edward IV to grant Joan Welles' lands after her death to her husband, 'the trusted Yorkist Sir Richard Hastings',[12] and accordingly, on 23 January 1475, the king granted Hastings a life interest in the greater part of the Welles and Willoughby estates.
[2][10][11][13][14] Willoughby was made a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Richard III on 7 July 1483, and served frequently on commissions in Suffolk from 1483 to 1497.
In compensation, however, it was enacted in the same year that Hastings should be entitled, for life, to all the lands which had belonged to Joan Welles' father.