Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby

Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby (1435?-1504), English nobleman, created 1st Earl of Derby in 1485. Lord Stanley was created earl as a reward for deserting King Richard III of England at the Battle of Bosworth Field, thereby aiding the accession of Henry VII to the throne. Although he did not directly help Henry VII in the battle, Stanley’s earlier marriage to Margaret Beaufort, the widowed mother of Henry VII, protected him from any suspicions of disloyalty aroused by his neutrality. The title of the earldom was not taken from the town of Derby but from the hundred (county judicial division) of West Derby in Lancashire, where Stanley’s grandfather, Sir John Stanley, had acquired a great estate by marriage.