General Notes

Alice, heiress of Stafford Earls of Devon, dead by 24 Apr 1448, widow of Sir Henry Cheyney, Knight, and daughter of Sir Humphrey Stafford. [Ancestral Roots]

Note:  Burke's Peerage, p. 832, on the history of the Earldom of Devon, states "Subsequently a member of the Stafford family who were for a while Dukes of Buckingham (see Stafford, Baron) was created Earl of Devon in 1469 by Edward IV.  On joining an uprising in the North of England, however, he was executed later the same year, having held the title exactly three months."  This is the only Stafford Earl of Devon (the rest were almost all Courtenay family), which makes the "Earls" plural in the above citation from AR a little bit of an exageration.  On p. 2680, Stafford, Baron, Burke's lists Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham, b. 15 Aug 1402 (too late to be Alice's father), d. 10 July 1460.  There were no Humphrey's listed before him and no one was listed who was Earl of Devon or died in 1469 (It is very small text with the 1st Duke's family going on for 2 long pages, and I have been known to miss things, but I did search thoroughly).  Who the Humphrey cited above is or his relationship to the "Stafford Earls of Devon" or Dukes of Buckingham or Earls/Barons of Stafford is a mystery.