John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford


John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford, Lord Great Chamberlain KG PC was an English peer and courtier.

Career

John de Vere, born about 1482, was the son of John de Vere and Alice Kilrington, and the great-grandson of Richard de Vere, 11th Earl of Oxford, succeeding his second cousin, John de Vere, 14th Earl of Oxford, in the earldom. De Vere had two stepbrothers, William Courtenay and Walter Courtenay, and a stepsister, Katherine Courtenay, by his mother's second marriage, before 1491, to Sir Walter Courtenay, a younger son of Sir Philip Courtenay of Powderham, Devon, by Elizabeth Hungerford.
De Vere was an Esquire of the Body at the funeral of Henry VII in 1509, and was knighted by Henry VIII 25 September 1513 at Tournai, following the Battle of the Spurs. He attended Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, and at his meeting with the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, at Dover in 1522.
On 19 December 1526 Oxford was appointed Lord Great Chamberlain for life and was made a Knight of the Garter on 21 October 1527. He signed the Lords' petition against Cardinal Wolsey on 1 December 1529, and was appointed to the Privy Council before 22 March 1531.
In 1531 it was reported from Venice that Oxford was 'a man of valour and authority … and it is his custom always to cavalcade with two hundred horse’.
Oxford bore the crown at Queen Anne Boleyn's coronation in April 1533, but later served on the commission which tried the Queen on 15 May 1536. On 15 October 1537 he attended the christening of the future King Edward VI, and on 12 November following was present at the funeral of Queen Jane Seymour.
On 2 and 3 December 1538 Oxford served on the panel of peers at the treason trials of the Marquess of Exeter, and Lord Montagu.
Oxford and his son, John, were in the King's retinue at the reception of Anne of Cleves at Blackheath.
Oxford was reputedly the first Protestant earl of Oxford. He patronised a company of players for which he commissioned John Bale to write plays from 1534-1536. As Lord Great Chamberlain and a favourite of Henry VIII, about 1537 he directed Bale to write anti-Catholic propaganda plays for Richard Morison's campaign against the Pope.
Oxford died 21 March 1540 at his manor of Colne, Essex and was buried on 12 April at Castle Hedingham.

Marriages and issue

Oxford married firstly, Christian Foderingey, the daughter of Thomas Foderingey of Brockley, Suffolk, by Elizabeth Doreward, daughter of William Doreward of Bocking, Essex. There were no issue of the marriage.
Oxford married secondly, Elizabeth Trussell, the daughter of Edward Trussell of Kibblestone, Staffordshire and Margaret Don, the daughter of Sir John Don by Elizabeth Hastings. They had four sons and three daughters:
  1. Elizabeth de Vere, who married Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy of Chiche, and had issue.
  2. John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford, who married firstly, Dorothy Neville, daughter of Ralph Neville, 4th Earl of Westmorland, and secondly, Margery Golding, and had issue by both wives.
  3. Frances de Vere, who married firstly, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, by whom she was the mother of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, and secondly, Thomas Stainings.
  4. Aubrey de Vere, who married Margaret Spring, the daughter of Sir John Spring; their grandson, Robert de Vere, became 19th Earl of Oxford. Their daughter, Anne de Vere, married, firstly Christopher Shernborne, by whom she had a son, Francis Shernborne, esquire, and secondly John Stubbs, whose right hand was cut off on 3 November 1579 for his authorship of The Discovery of a Gaping Gulf which criticized Queen Elizabeth’s proposed marriage to Francois, Duke of Alençon.
  5. Robert de Vere, lord of the manor of Wricklemarsh, buried at Charlton, St Lukes, Kent.
  6. Anne de Vere,, who married firstly, Edmund Sheffield, 1st Baron Sheffield of Butterwick, Lincolnshire, and secondly, John Brock of Colchester, Essex.
  7. Geoffrey de Vere, who married Elizabeth Hardkyn, daughter of Sir John Hardkyn.

    Ancestry