Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/227

 By his wife Margaret (Hist. Coll. Staffordshire, vi. 1, 106; the pedigree in Leicestershire, iii. 640, makes him and his son marry the same person), Verdon left several children. Their eldest son, John de Verdon, died on 13 June 1297 in Ireland. An attempt of his father to enfeoff him with some estates without royal license caused difficulties with the king (Cal. Genealogicum, p. 768). The second and youngest son, junior (d. 1316), accordingly succeeded to his father's lands. He had been sent back from Ireland in 1298, when he was knighted on 24 June by Edward I, and took part in the Falkirk campaign. On 29 Dec. 1299 he was summoned to parliament during his father's lifetime as ‘Theodore de Verdon, junior.’ In 1313 he was made justice and lieutenant of Ireland with a salary of 500l., but after Bannockburn he was on 12 Aug. 1314 summoned to leave Ireland at once with horses and arms to fight against the Scots (Cal. Close Rolls, 1313–18, p. 193). Eyton speaks of his ‘short but brilliant career.’ He died at Alveton on 27 July 1316, and was buried at Croxden on 19 Sept. A long list of his estates is given in ‘Calendarium Inquisitionum post mortem’ (i. 284–5).

Theodore de Verdon junior married first Matilda (d. 1312), daughter of Edmund Mortimer (d. 1304), on 29 July 1302, and therefore sister to Roger Mortimer, first earl of March. By her he was the father of three daughters: 1. Joan (1304–1334), married to Thomas Furnival; 2. Elizabeth (b. 1307), married to Sir Bartholomew Burghersh; and 3. Margaret, married to Sir William Blount. Verdon married, secondly, on 4 Feb. 1316, Elizabeth de Clare [q. v.], the king's niece, sister of the deceased Earl Gilbert of Gloucester, and widow of John de Burgh, the heir of Ulster (cf. Rot. Parl. i. 352 b). After Verdon's death Elizabeth became the mother of his fourth daughter Isabella, who married Henry Ferrers, lord of Groby. As there was no son, the Verdon estates were divided among these four daughters, and the peerage passed into abeyance.

[Calendars of Documents relating to Ireland; Calendars of Patent Rolls and Close Rolls; Rymer's Fœdera; Calendarium Genealogicum; Rolls of Parliament; Parliamentary Writs, i. 882–44, ii. 1554–5; Dugdale's Monasticon, ed. Caley, Ellis, and Bandinel; Nicolas's Historic Peerage, ed. Courthope, pp. 488–9; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 471–5; Eyton's Shropshire; Nichols's Leicestershire, vol. iii.; Gilbert's Viceroys of Ireland.] 

VERE,, is supposed to have derived its name from Ver, near Bayeux, and was founded in England by Aubrey (‘Albericus’) de Vere, who obtained from the Conqueror vast estates, chiefly the property of Wulfwine, a great English thegn, in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Cambridge, with two manors in Huntingdonshire and that of Kensington in Middlesex (Domesday). The continuance of his family in the male line and its possession of an earldom for more than five and a half centuries have made its name a household word. Macaulay's elaborate but inaccurate panegyric (lib. ii. cap. 8) on ‘the longest and most illustrious line of nobles that England has seen’ is rivalled by the stately eloquence of Lord-justice Crewe when pronouncing his judgment on the great case in 1626 for the family honours: ‘I suppose there is no man that hath any apprehension of gentry or nobleness but his affection stands to the continuance of so noble a name and house.’ Less familiar is the entail of his estates by the seventeenth earl (1575) for the preservation of the ancient ‘name of the Veers, whereof he is lyneally discended, in alliance and kindred with moste of the ancient nobilitie of this realme, and in the good will and good lykinge of the cominaltie of the same realme,’ &c. (Hist. MSS. Comm. 14th Rep., App. ix. 277).

The earliest information on the family history is found in the cartulary of Abingdon, which relates the grant of Kensington church to the abbey by Aubrey de Vere ‘senior.’ Aubrey de Vere (d. 1141) [q. v.], created great chamberlain in 1133, was son or grandson of the founder of the family. The early pedigree has been much confused by Dugdale and others (Geoffrey de Mandeville, pp. 388–98). A considerable addition to the family fief was made by the marriage of Robert de Vere, third earl [q. v.], to the heiress of the Bolebecs, whose ancestor, Hugh, had obtained large estates in Buckinghamshire at the Conquest. In virtue of this match the earls eventually assumed proprio motu the title of Viscount Bolebec. The fifth earl, Robert de Vere (d. 1296), was a follower of Simon de Montfort, who knighted him on the field in 1264, and summoned him to the parliament of 1265. His marriage with the heiress of Gilbert de Sanford brought the family the office of chamberlain to the queen (Liber Rubeus, p. 507), which Gilbert had exercised in 1236, when the earl's father had similarly acted as chamberlain to the king (ib. p. 759). The earls eventually added to their titles that of Lord Sanford in virtue of this marriage. The seventh earl, John de Vere [q. v.], married a coheiress of the Lords Badlesmere, whose title was similarly assumed by his descendants. His grandson