The Staffords, Earls and Dukes of Buckingham, were among the richest and most powerful members of the later medieval English baronage; yet their great wealth and territorial resources, which they acquired in part through royal patronage, eventually brought about their downfall. From the early years of the fourteenth century until the death of the first Duke of Buckingham in 1460, the Staffords prospered in the service of the Crown. Their personal talents as soldiers and statesmen and their growing reserves of manpower were placed at the disposal of successive kings of England; in return they were elevated from relative obscurity to the highest rank of nobility.

The second Duke received no such favours from Edward IV, because the latter's insecurity on the throne made him innately suspicious of the Staffords' royal blood and their traditional expectations of a share in the business of government. A combination of frustration, fear and ambition perhaps led the Duke to support Richard of Gloucester, whose success in gaining the throne encouraged Buckingham himself to take part in an abortive coup d'etat in October 1483. Although Henry VII reversed his attainder two years later the third Duke remained under constant suspicion as a potential rebel, and eventually went to the block in 1521 because of his failure to allay these fears.

The Staffords derived most of their income and almost all their influence from the ownership of land.