For his part, Buckingham raised a militia from his estates in Wales and the Marches, which he was to lead into England to join other rebels; but the rivers Wye and Severn were in flood and impassable, and after waiting ten days his men dispersed.

Buckingham fled in disguise into Shropshire but was discovered hidden at Lacon Park near Wem, having been betrayed by a retainer, Ralph Bannister.

[6] As Richard III's ally, the plausibility of Buckingham as a suspect depends on the princes having already been dead by the time Stafford was executed in November 1483.

[9]A document dated some decades after the disappearance was found within the archives of the College of Arms in London in 1980; this stated that the murder "be the vise of the Duke of Buckingham".

Bennett noted in support of this theory: "After the King's departure Buckingham was in effective command in the capital, and it is known that when the two men met a month later there was an unholy row between them.

[14] As a result, although it is extremely possible that he was implicated in the decision to murder them, the hypothesis that Buckingham acted without Richard's knowledge is not widely accepted by historians.

As Henry Stafford, he is the lead character in J. P. Reedman's A Man Who Would be King (2017), which tells his story from his own first-person viewpoint, and portrays him as desiring the throne for himself.