High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Humphrey Stafford, 1st Earl of Devon (ca. 1439 – 27 August 1469) was a dominant magnate in south-western England in the mid-15th century, and a participant in the Wars of the Roses. A distant relative of the earls of Stafford, Humphrey Stafford became the greatest landowner in the county of Dorset through fortunes of inheritance. Later, Stafford was one of several men promoted rapidly through the nobility by King Edward IV, to fill the power vacuum left by dead or forfeit Lancastrians. In the West Country it was particularly the forfeitures of the Lancastrian Courtenay family that benefited Stafford. In 1469 he received the Courtenay title of earl of Devon.