Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/201

 20;, Book of Knights, p. 14). Vaux actively devoted himself to agricultural improvement, and was in consequence returned by the commissioners for enclosures in 1517–18 as having violated the acts against enclosure at Stanton Barey in Buckinghamshire in 1490, at Harrowden in 1493, and at Carcewell, Northamptonshire, in 1509. For these and the numerous enclosures of his father-in-law, Sir Thomas Green of Green's Norton, whose daughter and coheiress, Anne, he had married, Vaux (and, after his death, his representatives) was repeatedly summoned before the court of exchequer in 1519 and 1527 (R. O. MSS. Exch. Q. R. Mem. Rolls, 2993, 11 Hen. VIII, M. T. m. 23; ib. 307, E. T. 19 Hen. VIII, 1527, m. 23). Vaux escaped the statutory penalties in the one case in which they seem to have been claimed by the crown during his lifetime by procuring a supersedeas (ib.) After his death a pardon for these and other similar offences was granted (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, iv. 4231).

In 1492 Vaux was among the knights appointed to ride and meet the French ambassadors. Ten years later Vaux became ‘lieutenant’ of Guisnes, three miles inland from Calais (cf. Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, i. 4635). While here an attempt seems to have been made by the Yorkist party to tamper with his fidelity (cf., Letters and Papers of Richard III and Henry VII, i. 231). Henry VII, unlike his successor, was singularly free from uneasy suspicions of the loyalty of his professed friends. Vaux continued when in England to figure at court ceremonies, where his taste for magnificence of dress made him conspicuous (cf., Annals, p. 484; , p. 598, cp. p. 600; Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, ii. 4661).

Vaux augmented his ample patrimony by a second marriage with an heiress of extraordinary wealth. His first wife, Elizabeth Fitzhugh, was the widow of Sir William Parr, and the daughter and coheir of Henry, lord Fitzhugh (d. 1472). She died at some time during the reign of Henry VII, leaving three daughters by Vaux. About 1507 Vaux married Anne, daughter and coheir of Sir Thomas Green, who had died in 1506. This lady and her sister, who married Sir Thomas Parr, inherited lands in Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire, Yorkshire, Kent, and Nottinghamshire. During her minority an attempt was made by Bishop Foxe, Lord Daubeney, Sir Charles Somerset, and others of Henry VI's court to obtain possession of this vast property for the crown (, Hist. of Northamptonshire, ii. 60; cp. Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, i. 602). This Vaux succeeded in defeating, but both he and Sir Thomas Parr were compelled on 10 July 1507 to enter into indentures for the payment of nine thousand marks (6,000l.) to the king, probably either as a fine for having married, or for license to marry wards of the crown. Of this sum 2,400 marks were paid, and the residue remitted by deed of 26 Oct. 1509, after the accession of Henry VIII (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, i. 600, cp. 3049).

Henry VIII renewed Vaux's appointment at Guisnes under new and somewhat onerous pecuniary conditions (ib. i. 544, 545, 598, 599, 652; Chronicle of Calais, Camden Soc. xxxv. 203; Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, i. 545). Vaux, who had perhaps suffered from the exactions of Sir Richard Empson [q. v.] and Edmund Dudley [q. v.] (ib. Nos. 464, 777, 1026), profited by their fall, receiving a large share of Empson's offices. On 28 Feb. 1511 Vaux was commissioned with five others to make inquisition as to the possessions of Empson, who had been executed in the preceding August (ib. 1518). In July of the same year he entertained the king at his Northamptonshire seat (ib. ii. p. 1452).

During the campaign in France of 1513 Vaux saw much service. In April of that year he, under Lord Lisle [see ], was one of the commanders of the English van of 3,200 men (ib. i. 3885; cf. 4008, 4021). During the siege of Therouenne Vaux and Sir Edward Belknapp convoyed the supplies from Calais, and on 29 June 1513, being surprised by the French, narrowly escaped with their lives after losing three hundred men (Chron. of Calais, p. 12). On 30 June Henry VIII landed at Calais (ib.), and Vaux was attached to the division of 9,466 men immediately under the king's command (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, i. 4307). At the end of the war in August 1514 Vaux, despite signs of loss of royal favour, was still at Guisnes. On 4 Sept. 1514 he was one of those who were selected to meet the Princess Mary, the sister of Henry VIII, and conduct her to Abbeville for her marriage with Louis XII. Lady Vaux was to accompany him (ib. No. 5379). His appointments were characteristically sumptuous—‘forty horses in his train and all with scarlet cloth’ (ib., and 5407). At the end of the year he probably returned to England, for on 1 Dec. 1514 he was placed upon the commission of the peace for Northamptonshire, a position to which he had not been nominated since January 1512 (ib. 5658, cp. 2045). Thenceforth his custom was apparently to spend the summer months at his