Thomas Stanley
1st Baron Stanley
(titular) King of Man
On his father’s death, Thomas Stanley became the largest landowner in the north-west. From 1439, he formed part of the clique that ruled England in Henry VI’s name (Bennett ODNB).
Offices etc.:
October 1427: Member of Parliament for Lancashire
January 1431 - 1436: Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
1437: Constable of Chester Castle
1439: Controller of the King’s household
1439: Chamberlain of North Wales
1443 - 1450: Justiciar of North Wales
1455: Chamberlain of the King’s household
1456: Summoned to Parliament as Lord Stanley
1457: Knight of the Garter
Events
Date of Birth: 2 August 1406
The date is given by Bennett (ODNB). The Complete Peerage (12:1:250) states that he was born in 1405 or before.
Date of Death: 11 February 1458/9.
The date is given by Bennett (ODNB) and The Complete Peerage (12:1:251).
Place of Burial: Burscough.
The place is given in Collins/Brydges (3:56).
Relationships
Father: John de Stanley (died 1437).
This relationship is given by Bennett (ODNB) and Payling.
Mother: Isabel .
Spouse: Joan Goushill.
This marriage is given by Bennett (ODNB), The Complete Peerage (12/1:250-251), and many other secondary sources. Documents dealing with the descent of the property of Elizabeth Arundel, cited by the Victoria history of Sussex (7:1-7) and Sussex Archaeological Collections (56:70ff), make it clear that Thomas married her daughter. Bennett notes that the marriage could have taken place as early as 1422.
Children:
(Complete source citations for facts about the children on this page are currently outside of the scope of this project.)
Elizabeth Stanley married Sir Richard Molyneux, of Sefton, before 1432; married secondly Thomas le Strange.
Katherine Stanley married Sir John Savage, of Clifton.
Margaret Stanley married (1) Sir William Troutbeck; married (2) Sir John Boteler in 1460; married (3) Henry Grey, Lord Grey of Codnor.
Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby (1435 - 29 July 1504) married (1) Eleanor Neville in 1451; married (2) Margaret Beaufort. (Margaret was the mother of the future Henry VII of England, by a previous husband.) Thomas’s support played a key role in the victory of his stepson, Henry VII, at the Battle of Bosworth. He is said to have physically placed the crown on Henry’s head following the battle.
Sir William Stanley, Knight (about 1435 - beheaded 10 February 1495) married (1) Joan Beaumont in 1460; married (2) Elizabeth Hopton after 1470. William was a prominent military commander during the Wars of the Roses. He was executed for treason, having supported Perkin Warbeck in his claim on the English throne.
John Stanley (died before 1485) married Elizabeth Weever.
James Stanley (died 1485 or 1486) Archdeacon of Chester in 1476. Some sources don’t list him as a child of this marriage.
Evidence
From The Thirty-Seventh Annual Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records:
(pp. 676-677):
Documents surrounding Thomas's death.
References
'The rape and honour of Lewes', A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 7: The rape of Lewes (1940), pp. 1-7. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=56907 Date accessed: 16 March 2014.
Baines, Edward, and James Croston. The History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster (revised). (Manchester, England: John Heywood, 1888-1893), 5:81
Bennett, Michael J., “Thomas Stanley, 1st baron Stanley (1406 - 1456)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Bridgeman, Charles G. O., “The Devolution of the Sussex Manors Formerly Belonging to the Earls of Warenne and Surrey.” in Sussex Archaeological Collections relating to the Antiquities of the County, (56:54-91). In particular, page 77.
Brydges, Egerton. Collins's peerage of England, genealogical, biographical, and historical, greatly augmented, and continued to the present time. (London: [T. Bensley], 1812).
Cokayne, George Edward, and Vicary Gibbs; et al. The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant [2nd ed.]. (London: St. Catherine Press, 1910-59).
Earwaker, J. P. (John Parsons). East Cheshire, past and present, or, A history of the hundred of Macclesfield in the county Palatine of Chester - from original records. (London: Printed for the Author, 1878-1880), 2:602.
Ormerod, George; Peter Leycester; William Smith; William Webb; and Thomas Helsby. The history of the county palatine and city of Chester:compiled from original evidences in public offices, the Harleian and Cottonian mss., parochial registers, private muniments, unpublished ms. collections of successive Cheshire antiquaries, and a personal survey of every township in the county, incorporated with a republication of King's Vale royal and Leycester's Cheshire antiquities. (London: G. Routledge, 1882), Volume 3 page 577.
ob. 38 Hen.6
Payling, Simom. “Thomas Stanley II (1406-1459) of Lathom and Knowsley, Lancs., lord of the Isle of Man” in The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1422-1461 (Linda Clark ed.) (University of Cambridge Press, 2020).
The Thirty-Seventh Annual Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records. (London: 1876).