Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/37

Rh

Earldom of Oxford is remarkable, beyond other English Earldoms, for the length of time that it continued in one family. For a period of more than five centuries and a half it was held, in male succession, by twenty Earls of the illustrious race of Vere. It presents, in this respect, a direct contrast to the Earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury, whose history I have endeavoured to elucidate at previous meetings of the Institute, which were repeatedly subject to the inheritance of females; and; as my aim in these papers is rather to illustrate the nature and descent of the ancient dignity of an Earl in England, than to enter into the wide field of biography, (which, in this case, would occupy a large volume,) I have comparatively little to say upon the present subject. I shall, however, be able to remove the obscurity which Sir William Dugdale left resting on the origin of this Earldom; and I have also to point out that the right of inheritance to the dignity was limited to heirs male, and consequently altered from its original character, by the special provision of an Act of Parliament, which passed for its restoration after attainder, in the reign of Richard II.

There was no Earl of Oxford until the reign of King Henry the Second. The circumstance of a person styled Earl Aubrey—Albericus comes, occurring in Domesday Book, combining with the fact that the first two Earls of Oxford bore the same name, and also their forefathers for two preceding generations, has suggested the supposition of an earlier origin of this dignity; but the distinction between the comes Albericus of Domesday and Albericus de Ver is clearly marked in this respect: the former had forfeited his lands before the period of the survey, they were then in the King's hands, and they never belonged in after times to the Earls of Oxford; but those manors which belonged, at the survey, to Albericus de Ver, descended in due succession to the Earls his posterity. The family of the comes Albericus of the Conqueror's days has not been discovered: but there can be no doubt that he was really the Earl of Northum-