HUGH DE STAFFORD, second Earl of Stafford (1342?-1386), second son of Ralph, first Earl, was born about 1342, and served in the king's campaign in France in 1359. Having entered the retinue of the Prince of Wales [Edward, the Black Prince], he was with him in Aquitaine, 1363-6, followed him in his Spanish expedition, and was one of a party sent to reconnoitre the enemy.¹ On 8 Jan. 1371 he received a summons to parliament as Baron de Stafford,² and on the death of his father on 31 Aug. 1372, his elder brother having died previously, succeeded as second Earl of Stafford.

At that date he was setting out on the abortive expedition undertaken for the relief of Thouars. He accompanied John of Gaunt in his invasion of France in 1373. In 1375 he took part in the campaign of the Duke of Brittany and the Earl of Cambridge in Brittany, and towards the close of the year was made a Knight of the Garter. He belonged to the court party, but nevertheless, on the meeting of the 'Good Parliament' in April 1376, was one of the four earls appointed, with other magnates, to confer with the Commons, and was a member of the standing council proposed by the Commons and accepted by the king. On the meeting of the parliament of January 1377 he was again appointed member of a committee of lords to advise the Commons.³

At the coronation of Richard II on 16 July he officiated as carver, and in October was appointed of the Privy Council for one year. Making himself spokesman for the discontented lords in 1378, he reproached Sir John Philipot (d. 1384) for defending the commerce of the kingdom without the sanction of the council, but Philipot answered him so well that he was forced to be silent. He was a member of the committee appointed in March 1379 to examine into the state of the public finances, and in 1380 of that appointed to regulate the royal household.⁴ Froissart says that he took part in the Earl of Buckingham's campaign in France.⁵

On 1 May 1381 he was appointed a commissioner for settling quarrels in the Scottish marches. He and his eldest son, Sir Ralph Stafford, one of the queen's attendants and a great favourite with her and the king, whose companion he had been from boyhood, marched northward with the king's army in 1385. While the army was near York, Sir Ralph was slain by Sir John Holland. The earl demanded justice of the king, and Richard having promised that it should be done, he continued his service with the army. It was evidently in consequence of this loss that the earl went a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1386, making his will at Yarmouth on 15 April, before starting. He died at Rhodes, on his homeward journey, on 26 Sept., and his body having been brought to England by his squire, John Hinkley, it was buried in Stone Priory.⁶

He married Philippa, second daughter of Thomas de Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (d. 1369), who predeceased him, and had by her, besides Sir Ralph, four sons—Thomas who succeeded him as third Earl of Stafford, and died in 1392; William, fourth earl, who died in 1395 ; Edmund, fifth earl, who was killed in the Battle of Shrewsbury on 21 July 1403, fighting on the king's side, and was father of Humphrey Stafford, first Duke of Buckingham—and three daughters, Margaret, wife of Ralph Neville, first Earl of Westmorland; Catherine, wife of Michael de la Pole, third Earl of Suffolk, and Joan, married after her father's death to Thomas Holland, Duke of Surrey.

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