VERE, Aubrey de (1627-1703)

Impoverished cavalier

Handsome, brave, and possessed of one the most ancient of noble titles, Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, seemed to be the epitome of the romantic cavalier. His father had however inherited the earldom indirectly and neither he nor his son was sufficiently wealthy to support the dignity of so prestigious a title. Furthermore, Oxford’s good looks and ‘naturally noble’ air could not disguise his lack of intellectual ability: ‘from his outward appearance, you would suppose he was really possessed of some sense; but as soon as ever you hear him speak, you are perfectly convinced of the contrary’. Gramont, Mems. (1846 edn.), 230–1. He was a very young child when his father, a career soldier, was killed at Maastricht and he became the ward of John Holles, 2nd earl of Clare, Thomas Howard^†, 21st earl of Arundel, and Henry Bourchier^†, 5th earl of Bath. A set of accounts, preserved among the state papers, suggests that Oxford inherited very small estates in Herefordshire and Essex and that his annual income may have been less than £300. Even in his father’s lifetime, concern had been expressed in Parliament about the family’s poverty. TNA, SP 46/87; L. Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, 57.

Like his father, Oxford became a soldier. He left England to fight for the Dutch in 1641 but had returned to England before his marriage in 1647. After the execution of Charles I he again left the country; in the spring of 1650 he was said to be in Breda and in 1652 he was in Antwerp. SP 46/87; HMC Portland, i. 558–9, ii. 40. However, he seems to have been back in England well before 1655. During the later years of the Interregnum he corresponded with the royal court in exile, was involved in a number of royalist conspiracies, and was twice imprisoned. He liked to think of himself as one of the exiled king’s most prominent and valued supporters and was clearly jealous of anyone who had a similar claim, especially John Mordaunt, later Viscount Mordaunt, of whom he had ‘but a slight opinion’. Edward Hyde, later earl of Clarendon, believed that Oxford’s refusal to co-operate was a contributory factor to the failure of the uprising in 1659. CCSP, iv. 225, 243, 369, 406, 429, 545.

In 1647, in an attempt to secure his fortunes, Oxford married Anne Bayning, then ten years old, co-heiress to the Bayning fortune, which reputedly consisted of extensive estates in London, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Kent, Surrey, Hertfordshire, Gloucestershire, and elsewhere in England valued at between £5,000 and £6,000 a year. Unfortunately for Oxford, the death of her father, Paul Bayning^†, 2nd Viscount Bayning, at a very young age had left the Bayning fortune vulnerable. In 1639, the marriage of Bayning’s widow, Penelope, to Philip Herbert, then styled Lord Herbert, later 5th earl of Pembroke, was said to be part of an attempt by the Herberts to ‘swallow the whole of Bayning’s estate’. CSP Dom. 1638–9, p. 622. The predatory intentions of the Herberts were confirmed by the subsequent marriage of Lord Herbert’s son, John, to Anne Bayning’s younger sister and co-heiress, also named Penelope. As a known royalist, Oxford’s marriage to a reputed heiress also drew the attention of the committee for compounding. CCC, 1753.

Neither Oxford nor Herbert could gain control of their wives’ inheritance until the birth of a live child. In 1655, when Anne Bayning was 19 and her sister 17, their failure to conceive led their husbands to draw up an agreement to guarantee that, if either died without issue, the husband of the surviving sister would guarantee an income of £2,000 a year to the husband of the deceased sister. When Penelope Bayning the younger died in April 1657, Oxford reneged on the agreement, claiming that John Herbert had tricked him into it in the full knowledge that Penelope was already dying, that he had exercised undue influence over her to secure the conveyance of parts of the estate in order to create an estate for himself and his brother William Herbert, later 6th earl of Pembroke, and that the agreement was void because it was drawn up without the knowledge or agreement of Anne Bayning.

Anne Bayning’s death without issue in 1659 brought fresh complications, since the estates then became subject to the unsatisfied claims of the heirs of Paul Bayning^†, Viscount Bayning. Oxford also became entitled to his wife’s legacy of £20,000 from her father but his attempts to claim it involved him in a complex web of litigation between himself, Henry Glemham, bishop of St Asaph from 1667, as executor of the will of the 2nd Viscount Bayning, and those who had failed to repay the substantial sums that they had borrowed either from the 1st Viscount Bayning or from Henry Glemham himself. Oxford was probably correct in his belief that at least one of these debtors, Richard Vaughan, 2nd earl of Carbery [I] and Baron Vaughan, had arranged his financial affairs with the express intention of defrauding his creditors. TNA, C 9/20/71; C 10/105/127; C 10/474/200; C 10/206/39. Those who assisted Oxford against Carbery were threatened with unjustified prosecutions. CSP Dom. 1668–9, p. 453. Litigation continued well into the 1680s. The surviving documentation for Oxford’s action against Carbery also reveals that Oxford entered into a debt trust on 15 Sept. 1668. C 10/206/39; C 10/474/200. His financial difficulties were compounded by heavy gambling. T. Lucas, Lives of the Gamesters (1714), 83. However, unlike many supplicants, he seems to have had little difficulty in securing payment of his various salaries from the crown.

After the death of his wife, Oxford initially appeared reluctant to remarry. In February 1660 he was said to have refused one of the best matches in England as ‘he could not think of settling his family and fortune until the king was restored’. In 1661 there were rumours that he was to marry Lady Anne Digby but at or about this time he had already entered into a liaison with a popular actress, Hester Davenport. Reputedly, her refusal to become his mistress led Oxford to arrange a mock marriage ceremony in which a trumpeter from his regiment played the role of priest. HMC 5th Rep. 150; Gramont, Mems. 230–1. Depositions in an action in the consistory court of London in 1686 make it clear that the story of the mock marriage was widely known. The couple lived together as man and wife for six years, during which time Hester Davenport was regarded as the countess of Oxford. LMA, DL/C/241, ff. 435–6, 438–9; Glos. Archives, Lloyd Baker mss, D3549/6/1/04. She continued to call herself countess of Oxford for the rest of her life and this, coupled with her refusal to remarry until after Oxford’s death, suggests that she did believe herself to be legally married to him. It is unlikely (unless the man who married them really was an Anglican minister) that the marriage was legal, but she was convinced that their child, baptized as Aubrey de Vere in 1664, was the legitimate heir to the earldom. The claim must have carried some credibility, so much so that the boy’s life was threatened by the family of Oxford’s second wife, Diana Kirke. UNL, Pw A 1149.

The rewards of loyalty

At the Restoration, Oxford entered fully into the social life of the court and even stood godfather to one of the children born of the liaison between Charles II and Lady Castlemaine. Pepys Diary, iii. 146. He looked to the crown for what he considered due to him, not only for his services during the civil wars but also to repair his family’s fortunes and to ‘put him and his posterity in a condition to support his quality’. CTB 1681-5, p. 1608. His desire for recognition was assuaged temporarily with an appointment to the order of the Garter. His military experience and unquestionable loyalty to the crown then brought other rewards: he became colonel of one of the few regiments that remained after the disbanding of the army. His commitment to military life was such that he valued the role of the military above that of the law as the ultimate bulwark of the constitution; in a telling exchange with the lawyer Sir John Bramston^‡, he described the army as ‘the principal defence and safeguard of the king’s person. Adding, where were your gowns when the king’s head was cut off?’ Bramston Autobiog. 127.

Despite his poverty, Oxford was appointed lord lieutenant of Essex in 1660. This was a post that would not normally have been given to so impoverished a peer. James Hay, 2nd earl of Carlisle, who had been joint lord lieutenant until 1642, was still alive, although too ill to undertake onerous duties. The extensive landholdings of Charles Rich, 4th earl of Warwick, made him an even more obvious candidate, but his Presbyterian and parliamentarian past rendered his loyalty suspect. HMC 14th Rep. IX. 281. The most obvious candidate of all was George Monck, the newly created duke of Albemarle, who was one of the richest men in the country and who both possessed extensive lands in Essex and lived there – for the most part at New Hall, a former royal palace – but he was almost certainly too busy to take on the lieutenancy from November 1675.

Essex was a frontline county, vulnerable to invasion from the Dutch. It was also thought to be disaffected to the new regime and it was feared that an uprising there might easily spread to London. What Oxford lacked in wealth, he more than made up for in prestige and military expertise. Under his leadership the Essex militia was provided with weapons, uniforms, training, and regulations and developed into a well-disciplined, effective and loyal organization. They proved reliable when called out during the invasion scare of 1667 and again during James Scott, duke of Monmouth’s rising of 1685. ‘William Holcroft His Booke’ ed. J.A. Sharpe, iii–v. Although Oxford left no personal archive, the survival of some of his letters among the papers of others, such as the Essex Mildmay family, shows him to have been a busy and conscientious lord lieutenant and it seems likely that he bore the brunt of the work even after he was joined in the lieutenancy by the young Christopher Monck, 2nd duke of Albemarle. Essex RO, D/DMy/15M50. Oxford played no role in the management of the commission of the peace since the office of custos rotulorum was held by Carlisle, until his death in November 1660, and then by William Maynard, 2nd Baron Maynard, until 1688.

Oxford was also appointed chief justice in eyre south of the Trent. The survival of some of his papers as chief justice make it clear that the office conferred a considerable amount of patronage, touching all sectors of the community. Oxford gained the right to appoint forest officials and to protect them from arrest, to license ale houses in the forests, issue warrants for the preservation of game, and to arrest trespassers and deer killers, and the power to grant licences to fell trees, dig peat, enclose land, build barns, demolish, extend, or rebuild houses, and to hunt and hawk in the forests. In his first full year of office, he issued 12 licences to fell trees; by 1667 he was issuing well over 40 a year. TNA, C 104/113, 114. He was convinced that forest law could be made to be profitable and petitioned for a grant of sums due to the crown in at least one of the forests within his jurisdiction and for the right to prosecute and recover them. CSP Dom. 1661–2, p. 280. Perhaps fearful of resuscitating pre-civil war tensions over the application of forest law in Essex, the king resisted Oxford’s requests.

Public life, 1660–7

Oxford had not sat in the Lords before the civil wars. The suggestion that he had signed protests in 1640 and 1641, while still a minor, is incorrect: he appears to have been confused with Philip Herbert^†, 4th earl of Pembroke. J.T. Rogers, A Complete Collection of the Protests of the Lords. Like the other ‘young lords’ he was initially persuaded by Monck to stay away from the House, but on 27 Apr. 1660, encouraged by Mordaunt, Oxford and William Wentworth, earl of Strafford, secured a declaration that Monck would not prevent their attendance and Oxford then led the rest of the ‘young lords’ into the chamber. CCSP, iv. 680; Chatsworth, Cork misc. box vol. 1, 27 Apr. 1660; Bodl. Clarendon 71, ff. 305–6; Clarendon 72, ff. 19–20; Eg. 2618, f. 70. Oxford was named that day to the committee of safety and as a manager of the conference for ways and means of settling the nation. On 1 May 1660 he was named to the committee to draw up a letter of thanks to the king and two days later he was selected as one of the six peers to present Charles II with the petition for his return to England. On 11 May, just before he left to meet the king, he presented a petition to the House in pursuance of one of his major ambitions – securing the office of lord great chamberlain. This hereditary office had been held for generations by the earls of Oxford, but had been held capable of descent through the female line and so had parted company from the earldom in 1626. The office does not appear to have been a lucrative one but it was immensely prestigious.

Oxford was back in England by the closing days of May. The decision of the House on 9 June that all members should take the oath of allegiance appears to have been taken at his prompting. HMC Kenyon, 122–3. On 14 June he was deputed by the committee for privileges to investigate charges against Robert Danvers, who had renounced any claim to the viscountcy of Purbeck. PA, HL/PO/DC/CP/1/1, f. 15. Although Oxford was absent from the House for much of July, he was present on the 27th to complain about a breach of privilege of Parliament – the arrest of his servant, Michael Torwood – and on the 31st to agree to the release of the guilty parties. Oxford was again absent for much of the autumn, probably through illness for in mid-September he was rumoured to have died of smallpox. HMC 5th Rep. 156; Pepys Diary, i. 245–66. He was not listed as present on 21 Dec. 1660 when another petition concerning the lord great chamberlaincy was presented on his behalf; Charles Stanley, 8th earl of Derby, petitioned to the same effect. Then on 28 Dec. the stakes were raised still higher when the holder of the office, Montagu Bertie, 2nd earl of Lindsey, petitioned for the Oxford earldom on the grounds that, like the lord chamberlaincy, it should have descended through the female line, and demanded that Oxford be removed from the House. Eg. 2549, f. 131. The dissolution of the Convention the following day terminated proceedings. Overall, since his first appearance in the House on 27 April, Oxford had been present at 40 per cent of sittings.

In Jan. 1661 Oxford was involved with Albemarle and George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, in putting down Venner’s rebellion. TNA, PRO 31/3/109, pp. 21–24. During the 1661–2 session his attendance was nearly 45 per cent of sitting days. It would have been higher but for his exceptionally low attendances between mid-Dec. 1661 and mid-Mar. 1662. On 11 May 1661 he revived his claim to the lord great chamberlaincy. Discussion of the issue had still not taken place when on 15 May he again invoked privilege of Parliament – this time concerning the attachment of his coach. The offenders were released at Oxford’s request on 28 May.

A further debate concerning the great chamberlaincy was held on 8 June 1661; it sidestepped the main issue, concerning itself instead with the question of whether the subject was properly before the House. Oxford and Derby then petitioned the crown and on 15 June, Philip Herbert, now 5th earl of Pembroke, presented the two petitions to the House with a referral from the king. On 25 June permission was given for the matter to be argued by counsel; in the process the House revived an ancient procedural rule: that a tied vote be decided in the negative. At considerable expense, Oxford retained Heneage Finch, later earl of Nottingham, and John Vaughan^†, two of the leading common lawyers of the day, to advise him. The fees of the lawyers (£21) constituted the single largest item of expenditure in the case but Oxford’s accounts also show disbursements to a judge, the cost of a dinner, and payments to various officials of the House for copies of Derby’s petition and the various orders, as well as douceurs to the doorkeepers. SP 46/87; Bodl. Carte 109, f. 314. The expense did not stop there: a carefully argued account of his case was published as a pamphlet, presumably for circulation to his fellow peers. Errors Appearing in the Proceedings in the House of Peers … in the Case betwixt Robert De Vere Earl of Oxford, and the Lord Willoughby of Eresby (1661). Oxford succeeded in having the case reconsidered but lost the subsequent division by a single vote.

During the 1663 session Oxford’s attendance reached 50 per cent. Attendance at Parliament went alongside a social life that involved hard drinking: both Samuel Pepys^‡ and the French ambassador reported ‘high words and some blows and pulling off of perriwiggs’ at a drunken entertainment given by Oxford on 15 May. Pepys Diary, iv. 136; PRO 31/3/111, pp. 146–7. On 19 June he raised yet another complaint about privilege, this time concerning the arrest of a servant by the under-sheriff of Nottinghamshire, who had seen and dismissed Oxford’s protection by declaring that ‘He valued the Lord Oxon’s protection not more than the straw at his feet’.

Oxford was also deeply involved in factional disputes. During the Interregnum, he had been feared to be under the influence of supporters of the queen, and seems to have been close to George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, as well as to James, duke of York. CCSP, iv. 209, 406. Scattered references to his activities after the Restoration suggest that he and York had many friends in common and were probably part of the same semi-military political and social circle; Oxford also socialized with Albemarle. Evelyn Diary, iii. 351; Pepys Diary, iv. 136–8. Despite the connection to York, there are indications that Oxford disliked Edward Hyde, now earl of Clarendon. CCSP, iv. 152, 441, 453–4. In May 1660 Oxford was said to be ‘out of countenance’ as a result of slights against him in the House of Lords in which Clarendon, then still a Sir Edward Hyde, was somehow involved. CCSP, v. 15. Clarendon had also opposed Oxford’s claim to the great chamberlaincy, stating that the House should respect its previous decisions and those of Charles I. Clarendon 92, f. 211. Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, listed Oxford as a supporter of Bristol’s attempt to impeach Clarendon in the summer of 1663. Carte 81, f. 224. In Mar. 1664 Bristol named Oxford, along with Albemarle, as someone to whom he was prepared to surrender himself. CCSP, v. 383; PRO 31/3/113, pp. 117–19.

The first 1664 session saw Oxford’s attendance maintained at about 40 per cent. On 14 May he was one of the messengers deputed by the House to ask the king to delay the recess in order to allow more time to discuss the controversial conventicle bill. After the prorogation, in June, Oxford was one of the candidates being tipped as governor of Tangiers, although in the event this did not materialize. Pepys Diary, v. 166.

During the 1664–5 session Oxford’s attendance was maintained at just over 50 per cent, although his presence has left little trace, apart from occasional nominations to committees. The short session in Oct. 1665 saw him present on just two days, probably because he was preoccupied with the defence of the Essex coast against a Dutch landing. CSP Dom. 1665–6, p. 25. He was not present on 21 Oct. when a complaint of privilege was made on his behalf concerning the impounding of a wagon by an innkeeper. LJ, xi. 692. After the end of the session it was noted that Oxford’s troops dealt ‘more sharply than others have done’ with Quakers who kept their shops open on Christmas Day ‘to show their contempt of authority’. CSP Dom. 1665–6, p. 116. The continuing threat of a Dutch invasion kept Oxford and the Essex militia occupied well into the spring of 1666 and his troop of regular soldiers was deployed in the area for much of the rest of the year. Ibid. pp. 219, 231–2, 469, 479, 481, 505, 508; William Holcroft His Booke, 42. He was also entrusted with the task of raising government loans in Essex. Eg. 2651, f. 188. His own financial situation continued to be precarious: as a result of his first marriage Oxford had gained possession of the Bayning mansion, Bentley Hall, in Essex, but he was so poor that he was now contemplating demolishing it and felling some £2,000 worth of trees. CSP Dom. 1665–6, p. 351.

In April 1666 Oxford was named as one of the lord triers at the trial of Thomas Parker, 15th Baron Morley. Oxford had himself been involved in several duels, so it is perhaps not surprising that he voted Morley guilty of manslaughter only. HEHL, EL 8398; Stowe 396, f. 178–90. In September he was in London assisting in preserving order in the aftermath of the Great Fire. CSP Dom. 1666–7, p. 103–4. During the subsequent (1666–7) session he was present on just over 57 per cent of sitting days. In accordance with his royalist beliefs, on 23 Jan. 1667 he signed a dissent against the resolution not to add a right of appeal to the king and the House of Lords to the bill for resolving disputes about houses destroyed in the fire. During the recess Oxford shocked Pepys by wearing his Garter robes all day and riding into the park with them on, but his social activities, however scandalous, did not detract from his attention to his military duties and in June 1667 he was again active in organizing the defence of Essex and the south coast against the Dutch. Pepys Diary, viii. 184, 254; CSP Dom. 1667, pp. 167, 249, 263, 277–8, 327, 335.

Public life, 1667–88

From the commencement of the 1667–9 session in October 1667 until the end of the year, Oxford was present on nearly 75 per cent of sitting days. His unusually high attendance was almost certainly prompted by the fall of Clarendon and the subsequent attempt to impeach him. There is no record of his vote but on 15, 19, 21, and 28 Nov. 1667 he was named as one of the managers of the several conferences held to discuss the refusal of the House of Lords to commit Clarendon. Arguably this was more a defence of the rights of the House of Lords than of Clarendon. When Parliament reassembled after Christmas his attendance dropped markedly, to just over 27 per cent. In January 1668 he was involved in a quarrel with Charles Sackville, then styled Lord Buckhurst (later 6th earl of Dorset), apparently caused by some insult about Buckingham. Albemarle had to interpose to prevent a duel. Add 36916, f. 60; HMC Le Fleming, 55; Carte 36, f. 125. Meanwhile Oxford continued to carry out the normal duties of a courtier and solder, accompanying the king in his inspection of Harwich and to the races at Newmarket, as well as fulfilling his duties as chief justice in eyre south of the Trent. CSP Dom. 1668–9, pp. 9, 576, 653; Add. 36916, f. 117; CTB 1669-72, pp. 22, 29, 33.

During the short and troubled 1669 session Oxford was again present for about half the sittings, with most of his absences clustered towards the beginning and end of the session. He was excused attendance on 26 Oct. but there is no indication as to whether this resulted from illness or absence on royal business. In January 1670 he was sworn as a Privy Councillor, perhaps as a replacement for the recently deceased duke of Abermarle, and in March he was one of the chief mourners at the funeral of the duchess of Albemarle. HMC Le Fleming, 69. During that year, in what was said to be an attempt to ‘gratify’ Oxford, the king finally authorized a full-scale forest eyre. R. North, The Life of Lord Keeper North, ed. M. Chan, 32–33. Oxford prepared for the occasion conscientiously, sending for the records of previous eyres, and was given £2,000 ‘for his expenses in holding his justice seat as justice in eyre south of the Trent, and as a mark of bounty’. A further £2,000 royal bounty was authorized in November. CSP Dom. Addenda, 1660–70, p. 291; CSP Dom. 1668–9, p. 653; CTB 1669-72, pp. 539, 685.

If all this was part of a concerted effort to fix him more firmly in the court interest, it is somewhat puzzling that his attendance at Parliament during the 1670–1 session actually fell, unless he was distracted from his parliamentary duties by those of the eyre. His attendance was only 37 per cent overall. He received a proxy from the 6th earl of Pembroke on 13 Mar. but was only present on two days before vacating it by registering his own proxy (in favour of John Granville, earl of Bath) on 2 Apr., which was in turn vacated by his presence on 31 Oct. 1670. Over half the absences were concentrated in the early months of 1671 and there is no record of a proxy to cover this period. The eyre proceedings were notable for the severity of the fines imposed but they did at least demonstrate that Oxford was as concerned for the privileges of his fellow peers as for his own. Although Lionel Cranfield, 3rd earl of Middlesex, was convicted for his failure to appear, William Grey, Baron Grey of Warke, admitted illegal enclosures, and Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester, admitted illegally cutting logs, all were excused by the court on the grounds that they were protected by privilege of Parliament. W.R. Fisher, The Forest of Essex, its History, Laws, Administration and Ancient Customs, 94, 98–100.

In October 1671 Oxford and Buckingham quarrelled at Newmarket and a duel was only averted by the intervention of the king. Add. 36916, f. 232. In the early months of 1672 Oxford appears to have been occupied by military duties but he was taken ill in May and was forced to leave the fleet. Verney ms mic. M636/25, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 16 May 1672; CSP Dom. 1672, p. 683. Later that month a treasury demand that he account for militia moneys implied that they suspected malfeasance. CTB 1669-72, p. 1245. That year also saw fresh developments in the litigation over the Bayning inheritance. TNA, C 10/106/144, Oxford, 27 Jan 1672, Dame F. Glemham, 1 Nov. 1672; C 10/166/79, W. Davies, 15 Nov. 1672. At least some of Oxford’s financial problems must have been solved by his sale of the office of chief justice in eyre south of the Trent to Monmouth for £5,000. Whether he did so voluntarily or was persuaded to do so because of controversy over the harsh penalties he had imposed is unknown. CSP Dom. 1672–3, p. 294; CTB 1672-5, p. 21.

The short 1673 session saw Oxford present on just over 50 per cent of the sitting days. He did not attend the (even briefer) autumn session at all. Between sessions, in April 1673, he acknowledged that he was married to Diana Kirke, a celebrated beauty some 20 years his junior. HMC Portland, iii. 336; Add. 70012, ff. 47–48. In the course of litigation in 1686, Lady Oxford’s mother, Mary Kirke, testified that the marriage had taken place privately in Whitehall on 1 Jan. 1672. LMA, DL/C/240, f. 142. Diana Kirke was said previously to have been mistress to several courtiers, including Prince Rupert, who sat in the House as duke of Cumberland, and after her marriage was strongly suspected of a liaison with Henry Sydney, later earl of Romney. Diana Kirke’s family were all closely associated with the court. Her father was keeper of Whitehall Palace; her brother Percy Kirke^‡ was a career soldier who had served in Oxford’s regiment and who owed his preferment to the influence of James, duke of York; her sister, Mary Kirke, was at one time Monmouth’s mistress and was also reputed to have been York’s mistress. Diana Kirke later claimed that Oxford had been ordered to marry her by Charles II, who had granted them a gift of £2,000 and a pension of £2,000 a year to cover her portion and jointure. After Oxford’s death, she complained that the sum was inadequate to her needs. HMC Portland, v. 153; CTB 1672-5, p. 167.

When Parliament reconvened early in 1674 Oxford was present on just 21 per cent of sitting days. During the summer he was reported to be ill and there were rumours of his death. He recovered, but his infant daughter died in October. Bodl. ms Film 293; FSL, Newdigate mss, LC. 62; Verney ms mic. M636/27, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 23 July 1674; CSP Dom. 1673–5, p. 381. In February 1675 he was named as one of the commissioners to investigate the surrender of New York to the Dutch. CSP Dom. 1673–5, p. 603. During the first session of 1675 his attendance reached 28 per cent. When the autumn session opened on 13 October 1675, Oxford was at the Newmarket races but he had arranged to send a proxy registered to Maynard, which was vacated by his arrival on 20 Oct., after which he was present on each of the remaining 18 days of the session. In June 1676, during the interval between sessions, he was summoned as one of the triers for the trial of Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, returning a verdict of not guilty. HEHL, EL 8419.

During the 1677–8 session Oxford’s attendance reached 60 per cent; some at least of his absences in February 1677 may have been caused by the illness and death of his son. No evidence has been found to establish that the child died of neglect but stray references suggest that this may well have been so; the story of the boy dying in ‘a miserable cottage’ was even repeated by Horace Walpole in 1748. Verney ms mic. M636/30, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 26 Feb. 1677; POAS, iv. 167; Walpole’s Correspondence (Yale edition), ix. 63. On 15 Mar. 1677 Oxford was one of 14 peers who entered a protest against the passage of a bill to secure the Protestant religion by limiting the powers of a Catholic king. Nevertheless his contacts with the ‘country’ opposition seem to have remained strong, for Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, dubbed him worthy and in May Oxford acted as go-between in presenting the petition of James Cecil, 3rd earl of Salisbury, imprisoned for his part in supporting Shaftesbury’s motion for an address for a new Parliament. Marvell, ed. Margoliouth, ii. 194. On 4 Apr. 1678 Oxford voted Philip Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.

Oxford’s financial situation was increasingly serious. In 1676 at least two individuals had approached the treasury asking that payments due to him be made to them directly as a way of forcing him to settle his debts. A similar application was made in 1678. CTB 1676-9, p. 378, 403, 1039. As a court dependant he was seriously incommoded by the stop of the exchequer but claimed to accept its necessity until, in the spring of 1678, on learning that Bristol was to be paid, he made his own application to Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), ‘my grant being of like force and my occasions greater at this time’. Eg. 3352, f. 111.

The second session of 1678 saw Oxford’s attendance reach an uncharacteristic 88 per cent. On 7 June he joined ten other peers, including Shaftesbury, in protesting against the decision of the House to hear the ‘whole matter’ of Robert Villiers’s claim to the Purbeck viscountcy, arguing that in a complex case the House should proceed ‘upon the case agreed, or single propositions, except where the House is unanimous in judgment; whereas in this cause they appear yet much divided’. On 20 June he protested again, this time in company with Danby and five other peers, against the resolution to address the crown for leave to bring in a bill to disable the claimant – a ‘course, in the arbitrariness of it, against rules and judgments of law, to be derogatory from the justice of Parliament, of evil example, and of dangerous consequence both to peers and commoners’.

While it might be expected that the revelations of a Popish Plot in August 1678 would encourage an even higher turnout, Oxford’s attendance actually dropped slightly for the autumn session of 1678, to 80 per cent. He was present on 15 Nov. when the Lords voted on whether the declaration against transubstantiation should be part of the Test. How he cast his vote is unknown but can be inferred from his failure to protest. It is unlikely to be coincidental that a warrant for payments of salary to various grooms of the bedchamber, including Oxford, was passed the same day. CTB 1676-9, p. 1162. On 26 Dec. he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendments to the disbanding bill and the following day voted against committing Danby.

During the first Exclusion Parliament Oxford maintained his attendance at about 79 per cent. His financial situation had not improved. When he approached Danby to secure payment of monies that the king had promised to his wife, he made it clear that he knew payment depended on persuading Danby to ‘befriend us in a especial manner’ and in return for favour he would ‘be always ready to acknowledge in anything wherein your lordship shall think me worthy to serve you’. Eg. 3331, f. 109. Throughout the spring of 1679 Danby consistently listed Oxford as a supporter, although the notation against his name on the division list of April suggests that it is possible that Oxford voted against him in the early stages of attainder proceedings. On 24 Apr. Oxford was named as one of the reporters of the conference on the answers of the impeached lords. In May Monmouth’s henchman, Sir Thomas Armstrong^‡, sought his support in favour of Monmouth’s claim to the throne. Horrified – and clearly wishing to prove his loyalty – Oxford not only refused but went straight to the king. HMC 7th Rep. 472. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases. His financial problems continued to be acute: by 1680 he had not only been forced to sell Bentley Hall but even to sell the fabric of the building for use as building materials. T. Wright, The History and Topography of the County of Essex, ii. 762.

During the second Exclusion Parliament Oxford’s attendance fell back to 59 per cent but most of his absences were concentrated in the period after the Exclusion bill had been thrown out by the Lords on 15 Nov. 1680. All the extant division lists agree that Oxford was one of those who voted against it. On 7 Dec. he found William Howard, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason. At or about this time it seems that a second son was sick and dying. Verney ms mic. M636/34, A. Nicholas to Sir R. Verney, 12 Oct. 1680.

At the general election of 1681 Oxford backed Walter Clarges^‡, the anti-exclusionist candidate for Colchester, and cousin of his fellow lord lieutenant, the 2nd duke of Albemarle. The election was lost when Titus Oates intervened and accused all three – Oxford, Albemarle, and Clarges – of being ‘papistly affected’. Carte 222, f. 256. Oxford did not attend the Oxford Parliament at all. In May 1681 he was one of 24 peers who successfully petitioned the king for a pardon for the vicious earl of Pembroke, accused of murder for the second time. SP 29/415/192. The following month he sat with the loyal courtiers at the trial of Edward Fitzharris and in July he was one of the Privy Councillors who signed the warrant for the committal of Shaftesbury. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 95–96; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk, ii. 283. His association with the forces of the ‘Tory reaction’ was underlined still further in the spring of 1682 when he was not only present with York at the feast of the Royal Artillery Company but was elected a steward for the following year.

In June 1682, together with other supporters, he was in court when Danby made his abortive application for habeas corpus. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 179, 199–200. Then in November he was the messenger who conveyed the king’s instructions to Monmouth to leave the court ‘and upon his peril be seen there again’. NAS, GD 157/2681/9. Over the winter and into the spring of 1683 he was also involved in the repression of minor incidents of seditious words, and after the discovery of the Rye House Plot he became involved in attempts to arrest the conspirators. HMC 7th Rep. 406; CSP Dom. Jan–June 1683, pp. 9, 11, 181, 376. In 1684 he was one of the co-signatories to Danby’s petition for release from imprisonment and stood bail for him. Eg. 3358 F; Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 300–1. In June of that year he was appointed high steward of Colchester under the terms of the town’s new charter. HP Commons, 1660–90, i. 231.

At the accession of James II Oxford lost his position as a gentleman of the bedchamber but the £2,000 a year pension to him and his wife was continued. He and Albemarle were also reappointed as joint lords lieutenant of Essex and were active in trying to prevent ‘heats’ in the election there. HMC Buccleuch, i. 344. Oxford’s overall attendance at the ensuing Parliament of 1685 was only 41 per cent but almost all his absences were concentrated in the summer when, in the wake of Monmouth’s rebellion, he was away from London, concentrating on the preservation of order in Essex. CSP Dom. Feb.–Dec. 1685, pp. 199, 214. In 1686 he was appointed one of the lords triers for the trial of Henry Booth, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington).

Oxford resigned his regiment to James II’s illegitimate son James FitzJames, duke of Berwick (unwillingly, according to Sir John Reresby^‡), in return for an additional pension of £1,000 a year. CSP Dom. Jan 1686–May 1687, p. 166; Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 42, ff. 139–40; Reresby Mems. 487. Despite his financial dependence on the court, he opposed the king’s pro-Catholic policies and in Feb. 1688, ‘being commanded by the king to use his interest in his lieutenancy for the taking off the penal laws and the test, told the king plainly he could not persuade that to others which he was averse to in his own conscience’. Reresby Mems. 487. James promptly dismissed him, appointing the Catholic Thomas Petre, 6th Baron Petre, lord lieutenant in his stead; Petre also replaced him as high steward of Colchester. Oxford’s sudden discovery of his conscience was viciously satirized by supporters of the King:

Old Oxford, whose untainted family
So long have boasted noble loyalty,
The fool in all his actions has express’d
But ne’er till now the fool and knave confess’d.

The spending his estate, marrying his whore,
Suffering his son to perish at his door,
Are things that may with honor be perform’d:
No crime but taking off the Test is scorn’d. POAS, iv. 167.

By October 1688 the threat of a Dutch invasion had exposed the folly of Oxford’s dismissal. The gentlemen of the county were unwilling to collaborate with Petre, and the Essex militia, with its twin dependence on the goodwill of the gentry and Oxford’s leadership, had rapidly fallen into decay. Oxford was reappointed as lord lieutenant and called his deputy lieutenants to a meeting in Chelmsford on 5 November. He also resumed his post as high steward of Colchester. Early in November, Oxford’s former regiment, minus its newly appointed Catholic officers, defected to the prince of Orange. Bramston Autobiog. 325, 329, 334. His brother-in-law Percy Kirke had already joined the Dutch forces. HP Commons, 1660–90, ii. 690.

Oxford was in London in November when he refused to sign the petition to the king for a free Parliament. In the presence of his fellow peers and James II, he explained that he had refused to sign because he knew that it would displease the king. His explanation to Sir John Bramston was very slightly different: ‘he thought it would displease the king, and he believed the Prince of Orange too’. Clarendon Corresp. ii. 209; Bramston Autobiog. 335. He arrived in William’s camp on 5 Dec. 1688, ostentatiously wearing his Garter, and reputedly bringing with him the money that he had been given by James II to bolster his interest in Essex. HMC 7th Rep. 228; Ailesbury Mems. i. 193. Three days later it was as a representative of William that he took the chair at the meeting in Hungerford and on 10 Dec. he represented William at a meeting with James’s commissioners. Clarendon Corresp. ii. 221; Kingdom without a King, 28. Although there is no firm documentary evidence, it seems likely that William had approached Oxford long before the invasion. Oxford’s name appears on an undated list of possible opponents of James II which is believed to have been drawn up for William’s use. Browning, Danby, iii. 157.

The Williamite courtier, 1688–1703

Oxford was present on 21 Dec. 1688 when the peers met William in the queen’s presence chamber and at subsequent meetings of the peers in the House of Lords. On 24 Dec. it was his suggestion that all the peers should sign ‘with their own hands’ the addresses to William to take on himself the regency and to summon a convention. Kingdom without a King, 124, 153, 158, 161, 165, 168. Under the new regime Oxford’s pension was continued and he was not only reappointed as lord lieutenant of Essex but also became custos rotulorum as well. His military expertise was also once more in demand. He was restored to his regiment in Dec. 1688 and, despite a rumour in 1692 that he would retire on a pension, retained the regiment until his death. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 489; iii. 6. In 1689 he was appointed lieutenant general of horse and foot with precedency over John Churchill, then earl (later duke) of Marlborough. He was with William III at the Battle of the Boyne and in a number of continental campaigns. Oxford was for once in little doubt that his services were truly appreciated. William’s recognition of his services included regular gifts of money as royal bounty and appointment as commissioner of appeals for prizes, as well as reappointment to the Privy Council and the bedchamber. CTB 1693-6, pp. 885, 1270, 1283; 1697, pp. 8, 510–11; 1702, pp. 33, 138, 227, 526, 570, 572, 727; CSP Dom. 1694–5, p. 204.

Much of the evidence about Oxford’s parliamentary activities in the Interregnum of 1689 and the early years of the reign of William and Mary naturally relates to his role in the design and implementation of the post-revolution settlement. The pattern of his activities is more suggestive of a court dependant than of a man committed to party political allegiances or ideology. At the election for Maldon in 1689, he supported Charles Montagu, later earl of Halifax, who was to become one of the leading lords of the Whig Junto. The losing candidate was the sitting Member Sir John Bramston, who sourly identified Oxford as one of ‘the factious party’, by which he meant ‘a party always averse to the governors of the town, for, as to the present Government, they were well enough affected’. Bramston Autobiog. 375, 378.

Oxford’s attendance level during the first session of the Convention was just over 72 per cent; during the session he held the proxy of Edward Henry Lee, earl of Lichfield, from 14 April. A further proxy, from John Holles, 4th earl of Clare (later duke of Newcastle), is dated 30 July but was probably intended to cover the following (1689–90) session. HMC Portland, ii. 161. Oxford proved to be a loyal follower of the new king. On 31 Jan. 1689 he voted in favour of declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen and entered a dissent on the same day to the resolution not to agree with the Commons that the throne was vacant. On 4 and 6 Feb. he voted to agree with the Commons that James II had abdicated rather than deserted the throne and prior to the second of those votes was one of the managers of the conference on the subject. On 23 Mar. he protested at the resolution to reject the proviso extending the time for taking the sacramental test. He was named as one of the managers for the conferences on the additional poll bill on 27 and 31 May. On 31 May Oxford voted in favour of the resolution to reverse the judgments for perjury against Titus Oates and entered a dissent when the resolution failed. He again signalled his sympathy for Oates on 10 July when he entered a dissent to all the questions touching the judgments against Oates, on 27 July when he dissented to the failure to agree a conference with the Commons, and on 30 July when he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments and protested when the resolution passed. In the meantime, on 13 July he was named to the committee to draw up reasons in favour of the Lords’ amendments in favour of including Hanover in the succession to the crown, which were used in the conference on 16 July.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given this level of support for the new king and queen, Oxford’s pension was continued and in March 1689 he was reappointed as lord lieutenant of Essex. Later in the year he received £1,000 as royal bounty and became custos rotulorum of Essex. CTB 1702, p. 526. For the rest of his life Oxford exercised the power of the lord lieutenancy in favour of those associated with Dissent and the Whigs. His desertion of James II may explain why the House had to interpose on 3 June 1689 to prevent a duel with the Jacobite sympathizer Theophilus Hastings, 7th earl of Huntingdon. The House’s intervention may not have been entirely successful for another report suggests that further steps had to be taken to stop the fight. Carte 79, f. 230. During the second session of the Convention Oxford’s attendance fell slightly to just over 68 per cent; apart from being nominated (along with almost everyone else in the chamber) to a few select committees on public bills (such as the prevention of minors contracting clandestine marriages) there is no record of his activities. In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690 Carmarthen (as Danby had become) classified him as among supporters of the court, and added that the king had most influence with him.

In Essex at the general election of 1690 Oxford backed Henry Mildmay^‡ and Sir Francis Masham^‡, whose Dissenting sympathies were well known, against the Church candidates, whose supporters included Henry Compton, bishop of London, and Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham. The opening of the first session of the 1690 Parliament saw Oxford’s attendance rise to 83 per cent and his continuing support for the new regime. On 5 Apr. he followed Nottingham’s lead in protesting at the decision to accept the compromise amendments to the bill for recognizing William and Mary as rightful and lawful sovereigns and to confirm the acts of the Convention. When the House debated the abjuration bill on 1 May, Oxford declared himself in favour of committing the bill for a second reading. Eg. 3347, ff. 4–5. Then on 13 May he protested at the failure to allow the corporation of London more time to be heard by their counsel. In June, shortly before the session was prorogued, he was one of the ‘zealots for the cause’ who accompanied William III on his Irish campaign. HMC 10th Rep. V. 130.

Oxford’s attendance fell to 61 per cent in the following (1690–1) session but his activities are again difficult to trace, apart from his protest on 30 Oct. 1690 at the passage of the bill brought in by Carmarthen and Nottingham to clarify the powers of the admiralty commissioners. He certainly had plenty of distractions outside Parliament: one was his campaign to acquire the forfeited goods of an Essex man executed for murder; another, and presumably more demanding one, was the threat of disaffection in the county. CTB 1689-92, p. 2017, xvii. 491; CSP Dom. 1690–1, pp. 238, 252. In July 1691 he was involved in yet another threatened duel, this time with James Cecil, 4th earl of Salisbury. HHM, Family pprs. 10, 71. Reports of the quarrel reveal that he had been entertaining a surprisingly eclectic mix of dinner guests, who included the former freethinker John Hampden^‡ as well as Salisbury, who was regarded, with good reason, as a Jacobite sympathizer. HMC 7th Rep. 200. Oxford continued to enjoy payments from the court: one list of 1691 suggests £5,500, though whether this includes the £4,000 paid as a ‘free gift’ in December of that year is unclear. HMC Lords, iii. 381, 387; Carte 130, ff. 330–1. He was also able to act as intermediary for Clare, who was angling for a dukedom. HMC Portland, ii. 166.

Over the 1691–2 session Oxford’s attendance fell to 58 per cent, with the majority of his absences concentrated in the autumn of 1691. Once again he left little mark on the session. During and after this session he was also regularly named as one of the lords commissioners. In March 1692, when the House was adjourned before formal prorogation on 12 Apr., Oxford was reported to be dangerously ill but he was soon back to full health and managed to attend some 76 per cent of the sitting days during the 1692–3 session. Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 382; Portledge Pprs, ed. R.J. Kerr and I.C. Duncan, 133. On 23 Nov. 1692 he was one of three earls deputed to address the king to grant marks of grace and favour to Sir Robert Atkins, who had acted as Speaker of the House for some three years. Oxford was in the House on 31 Dec. 1692 to vote in favour of committing the place bill. Rumours that he was to quit his regiment in view of his ‘great age’ and accept a pension in lieu proved to be incorrect. Surprisingly, given his close contacts with the Whigs, in Feb. 1693 Oxford joined the minority in voting Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun, guilty of murder. On 2 Mar. he intervened unsuccessfully on behalf of Henry Lord, one of the clerks of the House, whose rudeness to a witness during examinations into the state of affairs in Ireland led to an order that he be imprisoned. Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 624; iii 6, 47.

Oxford’s role in managing elections in Essex remained a crucial one. At the Essex by-election in Jan. 1693 caused by the death of Henry Mildmay, he supported John Lamotte Honywood^‡ and threatened his displeasure against those who supported Honywood’s opponent. During the summer recess of 1693 he enhanced his influence in the turbulent constituency of Colchester by using his position as a Privy Councillor to ensure that the borough’s new charter retained a wide franchise and by the practical assistance offered to the town in obtaining the charter by his steward. HP Commons, 1690–1715, ii. 187; Add. 33530, f. 30.

Oxford’s attendance during the 1693–4 session rose to over 86 per cent. In Oct. 1693, before the session began, he had been involved in the investigations into the conduct of the admirals (and by implication the management of the war by Nottingham) in his capacity as a Privy Councillor. In the course of questioning he told them that their conduct affected not only the interest but also the honour of the nation. Add. 17677 NN, ff. 294–7. When Parliament met again in November 1693 he continued the attack, moving for an inquiry into the matter on 11 Dec. and entering a protest on 10 Jan. 1694 against the resolution that the admirals of the fleet had done well in executing their orders. HMC Hastings, ii. 234. He was recorded as having voted in favour of the Whig courtier Ralph Montagu, earl (later duke) of Montagu, in the Albemarle inheritance case on 17 Feb. 1694, and his pro-Montagu sympathies are confirmed by the entry of dissents on 17 and 24 Feb. over Montagu’s failure to secure the objects of his petitions. On 7 Mar. he was named to the committee to draw reasons for adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the mutiny bill; consequently he should have been one of the managers of the conference on 29 Mar. but was absent that day. Towards the end of the session, in April 1694, Oxford’s daughter Diana married Charles Beauclerk, duke of St Albans, and one of Charles II’s illegitimate sons. The couple were granted an annuity of £2,000 a year, partly for support of their dignity but also in recognition of ‘the good services’ of Oxford and his new son-in-law. CTB 1693-6, p. 703.

Despite a long absence in April 1695, Oxford’s overall attendance during the 1694–5 session was 74 per cent. On 19 Jan. 1695, in the aftermath of the Lancashire plot, he protested against the decision not to engross the bill to make subornation of perjury in certain cases felonious. After the end of the session he was required by the king to be one of the three general officers to attend the enquiries into abuses. CSP Dom. 1694–5, p. 482. The new Parliament opened on 22 November. Oxford’s attendance in the first session of 1695-6was only 37 per cent, primarily because he was absent for all but one day after 10 Feb. 1696. His absence may have been related to the discovery that month of the Assassination Plot. William III was repeatedly warned that neither Oxford nor the troops who served under him could be trusted to remain loyal or to protect his person and, in the aftermath of the plot, several of Oxford’s troopers were arrested on suspicion of complicity. CSP Dom. 1696, p. 111; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 27, 67. However, Oxford’s name conspicuously headed the list of those who signed the Essex association oath and his regiment was considered to be sufficiently loyal to be entrusted with the custody of Sir John Fenwick^‡. TNA, C 213/107; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 72. Despite his absence he held the proxy of his son-in-law St Albans from 11 April 1696. The panic over the Assassination Plot did not prevent Oxford from maintaining good relations with those whose loyalty was suspect. It was his intervention in June 1696 that ensured that his Catholic neighbour Petre was issued with a licence to keep his horses, even though Lady Petre was a member of a leading Jacobite family and was herself a Jacobite sympathizer. Recusant Hist. xxiv. 60.

The 1696–7 session saw Oxford’s attendance recover to nearly 73 per cent. He was the third proposer of the motion to read the bill of attainder against Fenwick and voted in favour of the third reading on 23 Dec. 1696. WSHC, 2667/25/7; Staffs. RO, Persehowse pprs. D260/M/F/1/6, ff. 96–98. During the subsequent discussions over the conduct of Charles Mordaunt, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), Oxford supported Monmouth’s allegations that the witnesses were of no credit and proposed an immediate acquittal. He had been part of a small group of peers who had met at the house of Charles Powlett, duke of Bolton, ‘to consider how they might mitigate his censure, if they could not bring him off’. Vernon–Shrewsbury Letters, i. 168–76; HMC Buccleuch, ii. 439–40. Oxford’s finances were still a matter of major concern and in February 1697 he petitioned for a 21-year lease of Irish quit rents or ‘reliefs’ payable under a statute of 14 Charles II. In March, the Irish attorney general and solicitor general advised against such an award, arguing that it would ‘tend to the utter ruin of the subjects here’, but according to Narcissus Luttrell^‡ the grant was made the following month; Luttrell was possibly confused by an award of £2,000 as royal bounty. CTB 1696-7, p. 393; 1697, p. 8; Add. 4761, ff. 89–92; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 209. From 17 Mar. 1697 Oxford held the proxy of John Egerton, 3rd earl of Bridgwater.

Oxford’s activities both in and out of Parliament in these last years of his life are extremely difficult to trace. His attendance over the 1697–8 session was 74 per cent. On 7 Mar. 1698 he was appointed one of the managers of the conference on amendments to the poor relief bill. Later that month he sided with Charles Montagu and the Whigs over the bill of pains and penalties against the banker Charles Duncombe^‡, acting as one of the managers of the conference on 11 Mar., voting for the rejection of the bill, and entering a formal dissent to its committal on 15 March. On 25 May, despite his own somewhat tarnished moral reputation, he was appointed a manager for the conference on the bill for suppressing blasphemy and profaneness.

During the 1698-9 session Oxford was again present for 74 per cent of sitting days. His attendance was particularly assiduous during February 1699, when the question of the king’s Dutch Guards was raised. Issues surrounding the call for the disbanding of the army were of personal interest to Oxford since they were likely to affect his own regiment, but there is no information about his reaction to the issue or his voting intentions. Shortly before the next (1699–1700) session opened in November 1699 he was in court to offer bail for his brother-in-law Percy Kirke, who had killed a man in a duel. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 587. He attended Parliament in November and December but was then absent for all but one day of the remainder of the session. If it were illness that prevented his attendance, he was sufficiently recovered by the beginning of August 1700 to serve as temporary Speaker of the Lords at the 1 Aug. prorogation. A few days later, he acted as one of the assistants to the chief mourner at the funeral of Queen Anne’s son, the young William, duke of Gloucester. He then served as Speaker again on 12 Sept., in spite of reports of a serious and possibly terminal illness circulating only days before. Longleat, Bath mss, Prior pprs. xii. f. 430.

Oxford’s attendance at the new Parliament in 1701 fell to 58 per cent, largely attributable to a prolonged absence in April and early May 1701. On 8 Mar. 1701 he entered a protest at the resolution to address the king to lift the suspension of Captain Norris. Surprisingly for one so regularly aligned with the Whigs and committed to the prestige of the nobility and the rights of the upper House, he backed the Commons and the Tories in the fight against the impeached Whig lords. On 3 June he entered two protests over the resolutions concerning the answer to the Commons about the impeachment of John Somers, Baron Somers, and protested again on 9 June about the decision not to appoint a committee to meet with the Commons on the issue. He followed this up with further protests on 17 June about the decision to proceed with the trial, and then voted against Somer’s acquittal.

Marked by a long absence between 2 Jan. and 9 Mar. 1702 and several shorter absences, Oxford’s attendance dropped to 36 per cent in William III’s last Parliament. Despite, or perhaps because of, his failing health the new queen reappointed him to the Privy Council, to the lord lieutenancy of Essex, and to his regiment. She also authorized a payment of £1,000 in May 1702 as royal bounty, although one suspects it was perhaps a commentary on his willingness to pay his debts that she ordered half of it to be used to repay an advance from Sir Benjamin Bathurst^‡. A request for another £1,000 as royal bounty in July 1702 elicited a polite but firm refusal. CTB 1702, p. 33, 56. The next (1702–3) session saw Oxford continue his intermittent attendance, although overall it rose to 48 per cent. His declining health was presumably responsible for a rumour that he was to give up his regiment to Marlborough in return for a pension. Luttrell, Brief Relation, v. 253. Nottingham listed Oxford as likely to oppose the bill against occasional conformity and he did indeed vote against it on 16 Jan. 1703.

The session ended on 27 Feb. 1703; Oxford died just two weeks later. Such was his poverty that Queen Anne authorized the payment of £200 to his widow to defray the expenses of his funeral. SP 46/87; CTB 1703, p. 28, 208, 223. Surprisingly for one who had been involved in so many duels and who had survived several near fatal illnesses, he left no will. An inventory of his goods taken a fortnight after his death shows that his house was comfortably furnished and that, despite his reported foolishness, his possessions included ‘a parcel of books to the number of about one hundred and fifty’ in his personal drawing room and 29 pictures in his bedchamber. PROB 5/697. Of the five children born during his marriage to Diana Kirke, only two daughters survived him. Their paternity may have been doubtful for Diana Kirke’s reputation for sexual immorality apparently equalled that of her husband; Grace Worthley, discarded mistress of Henry Sydney, earl of Romney, referred to ‘the common countess of Oxford and her adulterous bastards’. Diary of the Times of Charles the Second, ed. R.W. Blencowe, i. xxiv. In March 1703 Hester Davenport renewed her demand to be regarded as Oxford’s legal widow, claiming the earldom for their son. She sought the intervention of John Sharp, archbishop of York, to whom she recounted her great affliction at ‘my lord of Oxford’s cruel injustice to me and his son which we have suffered many years without complaint in hopes when he came to die he would shew himself an honester man than he had lived’. Glos. Archives, Lloyd Baker mss, D3549/6/1/04. Her son petitioned the crown for the earldom after his father’s death but there is no record that his claim was ever referred to the House of Lords and he died without heirs in 1708. TNA, SP 34/35/72.

The succession to the earldom was further complicated by doubts about the correct rules of descent to apply. The earldom had been recreated in 1393 and it was not clear whether this should be regarded as a new creation or a reinstatement of the original peerage. The possibility that distant relatives might be able to establish a valid claim to the medieval title underlay the decision in 1711 to create Robert Harley earl of Oxford and Mortimer.