Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham death, and was made a ward of King Edward IV of England. He became the Duke of Buckingham in 1460 following the death of his grandfather, Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham. In February 1466, at age 11, he was married to Catherine Woodville, sister of Edward IV's queen, Elizabeth Woodville, and daughter to Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers. Buckingham and his wife had four children: Upon the death of Edward IV in 1483, Buckingham allied himself to the king's younger brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, helping him succeed to the throne as Richard III in lieu of Edward's living
Elizabeth Woodville to the throne with any degree of validity. To strengthen his claim and unite the two feuding noble houses, Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret Beaufort agreed that the latter's son should marry the former's eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, who upon the death of her brothers became the heiress of the House of York. Henry Tudor agreed to this plan and in December 1483 publicly swore an oath to that effect in the cathedral in Rennes, France. A month earlier, an uprising in his favour, led by Buckingham, had been crushed. Richard III's first Parliament of January 1484 stripped Elizabeth of