Charles Stanley, 8th Earl of Derby (January 19, 1628 – ???), an English nobleman was the only son of James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby and Charlotte de la Tremoüille.
As Lord Strange, he took little part in the English Civil War.
In France at the time of his father's condemnment in 1651, he petitioned unsuccessfully for the latter's life.
After succeeding to the Earldom, he lived quietly at Bidston Hall, Cheshire, emerging to support Booth's unsuccessful rising in 1659. Attainted for so doing, he was restored the following year and the family's lands in the Isle of Man were returned to him.
He married Dorothea Helena Kirkhoven (d. 1674), daughter of Jehan, Lord of Heenvliet and his wife, Katherine (later Countess of Chesterfield) in 1650 and had two sons: William Stanley, 9th Earl of Derby (c. 1655–1702) James Stanley, 10th Earl of Derby (1664–1736).
Dorothea Helena Kirkhoven, wife of Charles Stanley the 8th Earl of Derby, had an extra marital liaison with King Charles II of England which resulted in a child. Their son George, born 1658, was raised by the wife of a Gunner at Windsor named Swan. George assumed the surname Swan.
The brother of Swan's wife, Bartholomew Gibson, was the king's farrier in Edinburgh. It would further appear that Gibson obtained, on trust for George Swan from Charles II or his brother the Duke of York, a grant of land in New Jersey, where Gibson's son died about 1750, as would appear from a notice in the London Chronicle in 1771. George Swan (1658 - 1730) was recognised by King Charles II as his son. When asked why he had not ennobled him, as he had his other illegitimate children, the king replied,"I did not dare to make a deuck (Scots for 'duck') of him, but I made a nobler bird".
