{8b} Edmund Stafford, Earl of Stafford, was the third son of Hugh Earl of Stafford, and his wife Philippa, daughter of Thomas Beauchamp, the elder Earl of Warwick, and the heir of his brothers Thomas and William, and was after their deaths without issue, the fifth Earl of Stafford and Lord of Tunbridge. He married Anne, daughter of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, sixth son of Edward III. He was the father of Humphrey Stafford, first Duke of Buckingham, slain at the battle of Northampton fighting for the Lancastrian party in 1459. The strange and mournful fatality which attended the principal members of this powerful and celebrated family, will be noticed in treating upon the latter battle, in Chap. III. {8c} Lelandi _Collectanea_, vol. ii. p. 389 [313]. {9} In note 5 of Owen and Blakeway’s _Shrewsbury_, vol. i. p. 194, it is stated that the church is in length 126 feet, and in breadth (with the cemetery) 65 feet. {10a} Lel. _Coll._ vol. i. p. 388. {10b} Grose, vol. ii. p. 356, plate 28, fig. 8. Meyrick’s _Ancient Armour_, vol. i. p. 33. {11a} Some articles discovered there came under the notice of the Archæological Institute in August 1855. {11b} Dugdale’s _Monasticon_, vol. vi. part 3, p. 1427. {11c} See _Frontispiece_. {11d} Similar to the trench or pit on the north side of Saxton Church, mentioned in my paper read before the Society of Antiquaries in 1849, relative to the field of the battle of Towton, which pit contained the bones of many men of men slain at that sanguinary battle. See Chap. VI. {11e} In a note (5) to Owen and Blakeway’s _History of Shrewsbury_, vol. i. p. 194, referring to a MS., it is stated that a pit was made there for the slain, 160 feet long, 68 feet broad, and 60 feet deep, over which the church was afterwards built; but those dimensions, and especially the depth, are evidently very greatly exaggerated. In modern warfare, much smaller pits suffice for the dead. {11f} Leland’s _Itinerary_, vol. iv. p. 181 _a_.