The title of Duke of Buckingham has had an inauspicious and unfortunate history in England. The most infamous holder of that title was the Jacobean darling George Villiers, who coincidentally was born the year that the Henry VI plays were first performed and created duke the year that the First Folio was published. However, the title had fallen into disrepute well before James I made the unfortunate choice to bestow it upon Villiers. Almost one hundred years before Villiers was created, the title was permanently attainted from the Stafford family, who lost it after producing, at least according to the chronicles, three successive generations of conspirators and traitors. The first Duke of Buckingham, Humphrey Stafford, was actually something of a hero, who fought valiantly on the side of Henry V and tried desperately to foster a peace between the Yorks and the Lancasters. None of these attributes is displayed in the chronicles, where he is represented at best as an incidental scoundrel and at worst as a vicious little warmonger who helps destroy the good Duke of Gloucester. The second Duke of Buckingham, Henry Stafford, rivals Villiers in being the most famous holder of the title. Henry was the ally and then enemy of Richard III, which made him one of the favorite subjects of the Tudor historians. The third and final Stafford Duke of Buckingham was Edward Stafford, whose spectacular rise and fall most probably influenced the way his father and great-grandfather were portrayed and viewed by succeeding generations.