Elizabeth Stafford, Countess of Sussex Elizabeth Stafford, Countess of Sussex Elizabeth Stafford (c. 1479 – 11 May 1532) was an English noblewoman. Elizabeth Stafford was the daughter of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and Lady Katherine Woodville, the daughter of Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers, by Jacquetta of Luxembourg, daughter of Pierre de Luxembourg, Count of St. Pol, and was thus a niece of Elizabeth Woodville, queen consort to King Edward IV. By her father's marriage to Katherine Woodville, Elizabeth Stafford had two brothers, Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, and Henry Stafford, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, and a sister, Anne, who married firstly,
Elizabeth Woodville was going to marry his beautiful and young niece Elizabeth of York. In 1485, Henry Tudor invaded England and defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. As King, Henry VII married Elizabeth of York and had the Titulus Regius revoked and all found copies destroyed. Elizabeth Woodville was accorded the title and honours of a queen dowager. Scholars differ about why Dowager Queen Elizabeth spent the last five years of her life living at Bermondsey Abbey, to which she retired on 12 February 1487. Among her modern biographers, David Baldwin believes that Henry VII forced her retreat from