Stanley died at Lathom on 29 July 1504 and was buried in the family chapel in Burscough Priory, near Ormskirk in Lancashire, surrounded by the tombs of his parents and others of his ancestors. He had been predeceased by his eldest son and heir, George Stanley, Lord Strange by a matter of months and was succeeded as Earl by his grandson,Thomas Stanley, 2nd Earl of Derby. “In his will of 28 July 1504 he ordained masses for the souls of himself, his wives, parents, ancestors, children, siblings, and, ever the good lord, ‘them that have died in the service of my lord my father or of me’”
His first marriage, to Eleanor Neville (daughter of Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury and Alice Montague) produced nine children. Of these six died young and the remaining three themselves attained positions of great status and authority:
Eleanor Neville died in 1472 and wasburied in the church of St James Garlickhythe in London. His second marriage to Lady Margaret Beaufort, had no issue. He is also said to have had an illegitimate son, John, who became the Parker of Shotwick in Cheshire in 1476, but was unrecognised in official pedigrees. He seems to have died in 1477.
At his death, Lord Stanley could look back on a career of forty-five years of remarkable political success amid the most challenging of circumstances. He had not only escaped the bloody fate of so many of his political contemporaries, including his brother, but on top of the great patrimony he inherited from his father, he acquired huge estates and national offices, the Garter and an earldom. These, and his closeness to successive royal families – whom he could count amongst his kith and kin by several different connections – made him a figure of great power and influence. Under his adroit leadership the north-west escaped the worst horrors of decades of civil war that devastated other parts of England and his family “helped bring a degree of cultivation and refinement to the north-west”. Their patronage underpinned the careers of a number of young Lancashire men, including William Smyth, Hugh Oldham, and Christopher Urswick, who went on to become pillars of the Tudor church and state
The senior line of the descendants of Thomas Stanley and Eleanor Neville continued to hold the Earldom of Derby untilthe death of James Stanley, 10th Earl of Derby in 1736. The title then passed to a junior branch of the family, the Baronets Stanley of Bickerstaffe, descended from Sir James Stanley, younger brother of Thomas Stanley, 2nd Earl of Derby. This branch still holds the title today. Edward Stanley, born 1962, became 19th Earl of Derby in 1994. (John Stanley a younger brother of Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby was the ancestor of the Barons Stanley of Alderley.)
