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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: SOU-STE |
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STAFFA (Norse for staff, column, or pillar island) , an island of the Inner Hebrides, Argyllshire, Scotland, 54 M. W. of Oban by steamer, about 7 M. from the nearest point of Mull, and 6 m. N. by E. of Iona. It lies almost due north and south, is ; m. long by about a m. wide, is 11 m. in circumference, has an area of 71 acres, and its highest point is 135 ft. above sea-level. In the north-east it shelves to a shore, but otherwise the coast is rugged and much indented, numerous caves having been carved out by rain, stream and ocean. There is enough grass on the surface to feed a few cattle, and the island contains a spring , but it is uninhabited. During the tourist season it is visited every week-day by steamer from Oban. The island is of volcanic origin, a fragment of an ancient stream of lava. In section the isle is seen to possess a threefold character: there is first a basement of tufa, from which rise, secondly, colonnades of basalt in pillars forming the faces and walls of the principal caves, and these in turn are overlaid, thirdly, by a mass of amorphous basalt. Only the chief
Wishing Chair is formed out of a column that has broken short. From the Causeway a ladder affords access to the summit of Staffa. STAFFORD (FAMILY). This famous English house
house
knightly tenants, succeeded to the fief in her right (1194) : their descendant Edmund de Stafford (that surname having been assumed) was summoned as a baron in 1299. His son, Ralph, a warrior like his father, attained fame in the French wars. He conducted the brilliant defence of Aiguillon against the host of France, fought at Crecy and in the siege of Calais, Chosen a Knight of the Garter at the foundation of the order, he was further created earl
His son Hugh, who succeeded as and earl
pilgrimage at Rhodes. The marriage of his son, Thomas, the 3rd earl, in 1392 to the daughter and eventual heiress of Thomas, duke of Buckingham (son of Edward III.), by a coheiress of the great house of Bohun
Hereford
nobility
The Staffords fell from their pinnacle of greatness, which had aroused the jealousy of the Crown, by the attainder of Henry the and duke in 1483, but were completely restored for the time, on the triumph of Henry VII. in 1486, when Edward, the 3rd duke (1478-1521), regained the title and estates. Under Henry VIII. his great position, fortified by his relationship to the Percys, Howards and Nevilles, made him a natural leader of the old nobility
Henry (1501-1563), the son of the last duke, was granted by the Crown some of his father's manors for his support, and, espousing the Protestant cause (though married to a daughter of Margaret, countess of Salisbury and sister of Cardinal Pole), was restored in blood on Edward VI.'s accession and declared Lord Stafford, as a new creation, by act of parliament. His second surviving son, Thomas, eventually assumed the royal arms, on the ground of his lofty descent, sailed from Dieppe with two ships in April 1557, landed at Scarborough, seized the castle, and proclaimed himself protector. He was captured and executed for high treason. His father's new barony, in 1637, passed to a cadet in humble circumstances, who was called on, as a pauper, to surrender it to the king, which he 'did (illegally, it is now held) in 1639. The king thereupon bestowed it on Mary Stafford (the heir general of the line) and her husband, William Howard, in whose descendants it is now vested. Roger, who had surrendered the title, died in 164o, the last heir male, apparently, of the main line of this historic house.Of the junior lines the most important was that known as Stafford of Hooke (Co. Dorset), which had branched off from the parent stem at a very early date. Sir John Stafford of this line married his kinswoman, a daughter of the 1st earl of Stafford. From their younger son, Ralf, descended the Staffords of Grafton and other families; the elder, who fought in the French wars, was grandfather of John (Stafford), archbishop of Canter-bury. This prelate came to the front under Henry VI., becoming treasurer (1422), bishop of Bath and Wells (1425), and lord chancellor (14321450). Archbishop from 1443 to his death in 1452, he steered an even course between parties as a moderate man and useful official. His elder brother obtained Hooke by marriage, and left two sons, of whom the younger was grandfather of Humphrey Stafford, who succeeded to Hooke, fought for Edward IV. at Towton, and was summoned as Lord Stafford of Southwick in July 1461, and was advanced to the earldom of Devon on the 7th of May 1469, after the execution of the Courtenay earl, which he is said to have intrigued for. Failing to support the earl of Pembroke against the rebels a few months later, he was responsible for their victory, for which he was arrested, and beheaded (Aug. 17). With him ended the Staffords of Hooke. Sir Humphrey Stafford of Grafton (of their cadet line) was an active supporter of Richard III., and was executed for high treason by Henry VII. in 1485. From him descended Sir Edward Stafford (whose mother was a daughter of Henry, Lord Stafford), an Elizabethan diplomatist, who was appointed resident ambassador to France in 1583, a post which he held with success to 1590, sitting afterwards in parliament for Stafford, and dying in 1605. His brother William (15541612) was concerned in some obscure plots under Elizabeth.Another offshoot from the main line was that of the Staffords of Clifton (Co. Stafford), founded by Sir Richard, younger brother of the 1st earl of Stafford, who was closely associated with him in French warfare and negotiation, fought, like him, at Crecy, and acted as seneschal of Gascony (13611362). Clifton came to him in marriage with a Camville heiress, and he was summoned as a baron in 1371. His eldest surviving son, Edmund (13441419), a churchman, became bishop of Exeter in 1395, and was lord chancellor from 1396 to 1399. He lost the office on Henry IV.'s accession, but held it again from 1401 to 1403. He then devoted himself to his diocese till his death in 1419. His patronage of learning is commemorated by Exeter College, Oxford. The male line of the Staffords of Clifton ended about 1445. Of younger sons of the main line who attained peerage rank Sir Hugh Stafford, R.G., a son of the 2nd earl, was summoned as a baron from 1411 to 1413 (probably in right of his wife, a Bourchier heiress), but died childless in 1420. John, a son of the 1st duke of Buckingham, received the garter and an earldom of Wiltshire (1470), which became extinct with his son in 1499, but was revived in 1510 for Henry Stafford, K. G., a son of the 2nd duke, who, however, died childless in 1523. The Staffords made illustrious marriages from the day of the 1st earl; a son of the 1st duke married the mother of Henry VII. The badge of the family was " the Stafford knot," at one time as famous as " the ragged staff " of the earls of Warwick. See Dugdale, Baronage (1675), vol. i.; G. E. C(okayne), Complete Peerage; Wrottesley, History of the Family of Bagot (1908) and Crecy and Calais (1898). The important Stafford MSS. in Lord Bagot's possession are calendared in the 4th Report on Historical MSS., and the Salt Arch. Soc.'s collections for the history of Staffordshire are valuable for early records. Harcourt's His Grace the Steward and the Trial of Peers (1907) should also be consulted. The bishop of Exeter's Register was edited by Hingeston-Randolph in 1886. Papers relating to the two Baronies of Stafford (1807), and Campbell's The Stafford Peerage (1818) are useful for the pedigree, and there are collections for a history of the family in Add. MSS. (Brit. Mus.) 14,409; 19,150. (J. H. R.) End of Article: STAFFA (Norse for staff, column, or pillar island) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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