VERE, Edward de (1550-1604)

For the first 12 years of his life, Oxford was erroneously styled Viscount Bolebec.16 Procs. 1626, i. 183-4; CP, ii. 203. In 1562 he inherited an ancient earldom and estates worth at least £2,200 a year.17 C. Paul, ‘Edward de Vere (1550–1604): the Crisis and Consequences of Wardship’, EHR, cxxi. 1173-4. He was also recognized as the hereditary lord great chamberlain of England (an office distinct from that of lord chamberlain of the household), a post with few functions but one which gave him precedence over all other earls except those who held one of the four great officers of state.18 SR, iii. 729. However, by 1592 his riotous extravagance forced him to relinquish almost all his lands, including his ancestral seat, Castle Hedingham in Essex, which he had been obliged to convey to his first wife’s father, William Cecil^†, 1st Lord Burghley, in trust for his daughters. By this date Oxford had remarried and had been granted an extraordinarily generous annual pension of £1,000 by Elizabeth I. He subsequently moved to a house in Hackney, which had been purchased in his second wife’s name in order to avoid his creditors.19 T. Wilson, ‘State of Eng.’ ed. F.J. Fisher, Cam. Misc. XVI (Cam. Soc. ser. 3, lii), 22; E403/2597, ff. 104v-5; D. Pearson, Edward de Vere (1550-1604), 88; CPR, 1596-7 ed. S.R. Neal and C. Leighton (L. and I. cccxxii), 237.

Oxford participated in the coronation of James I on 25 July 1603, in his official capacity as lord great chamberlain, and was subsequently granted £200 for his fees.20 J. Nichols, Progs. of Jas. I, i. 230, 233; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 112. In addition, James granted Oxford the stewardship of Waltham Forest and Havering House, which the earl had long claimed, and in August 1603 he confirmed the earl’s pension.21 E403/2561, f. 16v. However, in September Henry Clinton^*, 2nd earl of Lincoln, revealed that, shortly before the death of Queen Elizabeth, Oxford had discussed the possibility of finding an alternative successor to the throne, rather than let it pass to James. No action was taken against Oxford, even though the government was in a heightened state of alert due to the discovery of the Main and Bye Plots, probably because he was considered, in the words of the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Peyton^‡, too ‘weak in body, in friends, in ability, and all other means, to raise any combustion in the state’.22 SP14/3/77; 14/4/14i.

At the start of the 1604-10 Parliament, Oxford was appointed by the crown one of the triers and receivers of petitions from Gascony.23 LJ, ii. 264a. However, there is no evidence that he ever attended the Lords, nor is there any trace of a proxy. A bill was introduced in the Commons to revive the lord great chamberlain’s function of receiving homage from landowners on behalf of the king, in return for ‘some small and reasonable fees’, a proposal which Oxford himself had previously put forward in 1594. The bill was committed on 26 Apr., but never reported, possibly because it would have entailed the abolition of respite of homage, a minor source of crown revenue.24 CJ, i. 172b; 185a-b; SP14/24/59; J. Hurstfield, Queen’s Wards, 177; CP, x. 252n.b.

Oxford died on 24 June 1604, 13 days before the first session was prorogued, and was buried at Hackney on 6 July.25 Lysons, ii. 484. He left no will and, as his widow refused to take on the administration of his estate, there is no evidence of any grant of probate. His income at death, aside from his pension, has been estimated at less than £70 a year.26 Nelson, 431; Pearson, 216. He was succeeded by his only son Henry de Vere^*, 18th earl of Oxford, then aged 11.