Good Lords and Kingmakers - The Stanleys of Lathom in English Politics, 1385-1485

The history of the Stanleys of Lathom has epic qualities, and needs no mythical embellishment. The career of the first John Stanley in the late fourteenth century subsequently became the subject of legend, but the facts are as remarkable as the fiction. Similarly, the crucial role of the Stanleys in securing the Tudor succession in 1485 must be acknowledged as an epic achievement, regardless of reservations about the historicity of the famous battlefield 'coronation'. Obviously the dramatic rise of this puissant lineage deserves to be properly chronicled, and in any assessment of aristocratic politics in this turbulent age it promises to be an instructive case-study. Since the power-base of the Stanleys lay in Cheshire and Lancashire, a region which had not suffered the pretensions of a resident noble house, the impact of their aggrandisement on provincial life can be better appraised. At the same time, their emergence as intermediaries between the crown and the royal palatinates of the north-west often gave them an invidious eminence in national politics. Needless to say, the house of Stanley was not that rare breed, a 'typical' noble family.