{48d} The descent of the Duke of Buckingham from King Edward III. was as follows:—Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, a nobleman of immense possessions, had two daughters, his coheiresses. Eleanor, the eldest daughter, married Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, sixth son of King Edward III. Thomas Duke of Gloucester had by her, amongst other issue, a daughter Anne, whose first husband Edmund Stafford, fifth Earl of Stafford, was slain at the battle of Shrewsbury. They had a son, Humphrey, first Duke of Buckingham, who married Anne, daughter of Ralph Neville, first Earl of Westmoreland, and was slain at the battle of Northampton. Their eldest son was Humphrey Earl of Stafford, who married Margaret, daughter of Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and was slain at the first battle of Saint Alban’s. Their son Henry Stafford, second Duke of Buckingham, married Katherine, daughter of Richard Wideville or Wodeville, Earl of Rivers, and was executed in the first year of Richard III. Besides the descent of Henry Stafford, second Duke of Buckingham, from Edward III., as above mentioned, he was also descended from him, through his (the Duke of Buckingham’s) mother, Margaret Beaufort, from John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset (son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, fourth son of Edward III.), by Katherine Swinford, but born before their marriage, in which defect of a legitimate title, by his maternal descent, his case resembled that of King Henry VII. The Duke of Buckingham, however, from one or both of those sources of descent, probably flattered himself with the hope of one day being King of England; and it has been very reasonably suggested, that it was fortunate for the Earl of Richmond, afterwards King Henry VII., that his first expedition and attempt to land in England, was a total failure, and terminated in the execution of the Duke of Buckingham; for if that powerful and ambitious nobleman had succeeded in deposing Richard III., it is very probable that he would have attempted to have seized the throne, in his own right. Mary, the second daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, married Henry Earl of Derby, afterwards King Henry IV.; and it should be here observed, that the Duke of Buckingham was entitled, by descent from Eleanor, eldest daughter of the Earl of Hereford, to at least half of his great possessions. After the line of Henry IV. had become extinct, the other half was vested in Edward IV. and his heirs; but Buckingham considered himself entitled to it, as heir at law of Mary, the second daughter of the Earl of Hereford. Shakespeare seldom wrote without a meaning, and from what is above stated, his object in the drama of _Richard III._ will be at once apparent, in causing the Duke of Gloucester to offer the following inducement to the Duke of Buckingham to support his claim to the throne:—