Thomas Giffard

Sir John was a notable courtier and soldier, as well as one of the county's wealthiest landowners, and his family had lived at Chillington since the late 12th century.

As Dorothy was the heir to the Montgomery estates, Giffard was able to set himself up in modest comfort and security, independently of his father.

In his first wife's right, he was lord of Cubley itself and also Caverswall,[3] a small manor to the north-east of Stafford, on the edge of the Staffordshire moorlands.

The couple settled at Caverswall Castle, and this was to remain Giffard's main home, even after his wife's death, which was by 1529, as this was the year of his second marriage.

[1] The sum was not huge but for ambitious landed gentry such posts were a foot in the door: later, the Giffards would become not merely keepers but tenants of the park and able to profit more amply from managing it.

The passing of the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries Act in 1536 brought further opportunities, opening up a wide range of small properties for landowners and entrepreneurs at Giffard's level.

Sir Edward Littleton, his contemporary and neighbour at Pillaton Hall was a competitor, with Bishop Rowland Lee on his side.

for the property, which consisted of the site and grounds of the priory building itself, including the church and churchyard a water-mill, together with a tract of grazing land in Brewood – all valued at £7 9s.

[3] After his father's death, he leased Black Ladies to Humphrey, a younger son, although the reversion remained with John Giffard, his heir.

[5] Sir Thomas Giffard was sufficiently prominent, even before inheriting the family estates, to be pricked High Sheriff of Staffordshire three times: 1529–30, 1547–8, and 1553–4.

Like his father, Giffard was frequently at the royal court, where he had attained the post of Gentleman Usher of the Privy Chamber by 1533 and held it until his death.

In 1544, aged at least 53, he enlisted in an army of 40,000 under the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk to invade in northern France, as part of the Italian War of 1542–1546.

However, the campaign became bogged down in protracted sieges and ended inconclusively after a few months, when Charles V, Henry VIII's main ally in the war, made a separate peace.

Unlike Littleton, however, Giffard outlived Mary's Counter-Reformation and was forced to make a decision when faced by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement.