Anna Buckingham

Anna Buckingham as played by Anna Brewster
*Fictional Character based on Anne Stafford, Lady Hastings, Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham's Sister.
In the series she is portrayed as his daughter.

born c. 1483 - died c.1544 Character's backstory: Anne Stafford was born of a well connected and noble family. Her father had been executed by King Richard III & her mother was a sister of King Edward IV's queen. It was rumoured that Anne entered into an affair with King Henry VIII around 1510, only one year after Henry wed Queen Katherine of Aragon, and one year after Anne married Lord Hastings. Their adultery became a scandal when made public when her sister Elizabeth Stafford informed her brother, Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, who was enraged. Her husband, Lord George Hastings, sent her to a convent. There are suggestions that her relationship with the King continued until 1513, however. *In the series she is caught having an affair with Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk for which there is no known record. Afterward, Anne was involved with the man who had been the go-between during her relationship with the king, Sir William Compton who named her in his will. * In the series another "Lady Hastings" is shown inaccurately catching the sweating sickness and dying soon after Compton. Anne was present at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520. She may have been at court when her brother was executed for treason in 1521. She became countess of Huntingdon in 1529 when Hastings was elevated in the peerage and from the late 1530s was part of the household of Henry VIII's daughter, Princess Mary Tudor. Gentility: Nobility "It has often been asserted that Henry was faithful to Katherine until he was linked to Bessie Blount, five years into his reign. In reality, Henry was involved with other women from the very beginning of his first marriage. He seems to have been attracted to Katherine at first - a bonus for an arranged marriage - but there were many other tempting offers for the teenage king. And within a year of marriage, the whole court was aware of who the king's lover was. And his wife was devastated by his betrayal. Henry's desire for lady Anne Stafford caused a scandal that reverberated around Europe. In May 1510, only a year into his marriage and while the devoted Queen Katherine was pregnant, Henry strayed. Anne was a dangerous choice - she was the sister of the premier peer of England. Henry's second cousin, and a married woman. Edward, duke of Buckingham, was outraged that his sister could demean the family by becoming the mistress of any man, even a king. Descended from Edward III several times over, the Staffords were suspected of considering themselves more royal than the Tudors.... The duke of Buckingham was informed, allegedly by his sister Lady Elizabeth Stafford, of Anne's affair and he went to investigate. 'Whilst the Duke was in the private apartments of his sister, who was suspected with the King, Compton came there to talk with her, saw the Duke who intercepted him, quarrelled with him, and the end of it he [Compton] was reproached in many hard words. The King was so offended at this that he reprimanded the Duke angrily. The same night, the Duke left the palace and did not return for some days. At the same time, the husband of that lady went away, carried her off and placed her in a convent sixty miles from here, that no one may see her. The King having understood that all this proceeds from [Elizabeth Stafford], the day after she [Anne] was gone, [he] turned her [sister] out of the palace, and her husband with her. Believing that there were other women in employment of the favourite such as go about the palace insidiously spying out every unwatched movement in order to tell the Queen, the King would have liked to turn them all out, only that it has appeared to him too great a scandal. Afterwards, almost all the court knew that the Queen had been vexed with the King, and the King with her, and that the storm went on between them'. " [source : Kelly Hart's The Mistresses of Henry VIII 2009]

"According to [the Duke of ] Buckingham’s biographer, Barbara J. Harris, he took a paternalistic interest in both his sisters and arranged both of Anne’s marriages. She wed for the second time in December 1509, taking as her husband George, 3rd baron Hastings (1488-1545). It was as Lady Hastings that she was at court as one of Queen Katherine of Aragon’s ladies. By May of 1510, she was at the center of a scandal. Her own sister, Elizabeth, Lady Fitzwalter, informed their brother that Anne’s behavior was bringing shame on the Stafford family. Buckingham subsequently caught Sir William Compton (d. 1528) in Anne’s chamber. After a heated exchange during which Buckingham is reported to have told the pair that "women of the Stafford family are no game for Comptons, no, nor for Tudors, either," the duke saw to it that Anne’s husband spirited his wife away from court, initially transporting her to a convent some sixty miles distant. Speculation ran high that Compton had been soliciting Anne’s favors on behalf of King Henry VIII, and that Anne was the king’s mistress, but whatever the truth of that relationship, William Compton himself seems to have developed a strong bond of affection with Lady Hastings. Records of the Court of Arches (an ecclesiastical court) from 1527, seventeen years later, indicate that Compton was obliged to take the sacrament to prove he had not committed adultery with Anne during his wife’s lifetime. In his will, made in March 1522, he left Anne a life interest in property in Leicestershire and founded a chantry where prayers would be said daily for her soul. The latter provision was one usually made only for one’s self and close family members. Whatever the relationship with Compton, Anne seems to have developed a strong and loving relationship with her husband, as evidenced by letters he wrote to her, and she was named as one of the executors in his will." ~ Excerpted from <a class="external" href="http://www.kateemersonhistoricals.com/TudorWomen7.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Who's who of Tudor Women">Who's who of Tudor Women</a> Click EasyEdit to update this page! (Don't see the EasyEdit button above? <a href="../#signin" target="_self">Sign in</a> or <a href="../accountnew" target="_self">Sign up</a>.) LINKS: The King's Mistresses

CHARACTER CONNECTIONS Family members: Father: Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham Mother: Catherine Woodville Brother : Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham Brother : Henry Stafford, 1st Earl of Wiltshire Sister: Elizabeth Stafford, Countess of Sussex Romance(s): King Henry VIII (rumoured) 1510 - 1513 Sir William Compton (rumoured) although he wrote her in his will in 1522 leaving her many lands which she inherited when he died of the Sweating sickness in 1528 Marriages: William Herbert who died september 16, 1507 ( childless marriage) George Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon in December 1509 (8 children) Anne had 8 children, 5 sons and 3 daughters: Francis (1514-June 20,1561), Edward (1520-March 5,1573), Thomas, William, Henry, Catherine (b.1516), Mary (d.1533?) Dorothy (b.c.1520) Friends: Enemies:

UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTER QUOTES

DEFINING EPISODES | MEMORABLE SCENES

PHOTOS

	Anne Stafford c. 1535 in Saint Louis Museum, Missouri