Henry Stafford, 1st Baron Stafford

However his family never truly recovered from the blow and thenceforward gradually declined into obscurity, with his descendant the 6th Baron being requested by King Charles I in 1639 to surrender the barony on account of his poverty.

[2] He was born on 18 September 1501 at Penshurst Place in Kent, the only son and heir of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham (1477–1521), of Stafford Castle in Staffordshire and of Thornbury Castle in Gloucestershire, by his wife Eleanor Percy, a daughter of Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland and Maud Herbert.

In 1554, having petitioned Queen Mary I for financial assistance, he was made one of two Chamberlains of the Exchequer, a position that brought him an annual fee of £50.

[2] Cleveland commented on him as follows:[9] "This unfortunate man, the great-grandson of the last Duke, was then sixty-five, and had sunk into so abject a condition that he felt ashamed of bearing his own name, and long passed as Fludd, or Floyde, having, it is supposed, assumed the patronymic of one of his uncle's servants, who had reared and sheltered him in early life."

He commissioned other translations, such as Humphrey Lloyd's version of Vassaeus on urine, and influenced the publication of Mirror for Magistrates in 1559.