Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/234

, joined him in the capacity of tutor and receiver of his property. He was thoroughly grounded in French and Latin, but at the same time learnt to dance, ride, and shoot. While manifesting a natural taste for music and literature, the youth developed a waywardness of temper which led him into every form of extravagance, and into violent quarrels with other members of his guardian's household.

Oxford became a prominent figure at Elizabeth's court during his boyhood. He accompanied the queen to Cambridge in August 1564, when he stayed at St. John's College. He also attended the queen on her state visit to Oxford in September 1566. He was created M.A. of both universities (cf. Elizabethan Oxford, Oxford Hist. Soc. pp. 115, 173, 177). Meanwhile his guardian Cecil found his perverse humour a source of grave embarrassment. In July 1567 Cecil narrated in his diary how the earl inflicted a wound which proved fatal on Thomas Bryncknell, an under-cook at Cecil House. Luckily a jury was induced to deliver a verdict of felo de se, the man's death being attributed to his ‘running upon a poynt of a fence sword of the said erle.’ On 24 Oct. 1569 Oxford begged his guardian to obtain for him some military duty. He took his seat in the House of Lords on coming of age on 2 April 1571, and on the first three days of the following May he greatly distinguished himself in a solemn joust at the tilt, tourney, and barrier, which took place in the queen's presence at Westminster. In August he was appointed to attend the French envoy, Paul de Foix, who came to England to discuss the queen's projected marriage to the Duc d'Anjou. Burghley wrote hopefully at the time that ‘he found in the earl more understanding than any stranger to him would think’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 95). In December he married, with the queen's consent, Burghley's eldest daughter, Anne. The queen attended the ceremony, which was celebrated with much pomp.

Oxford did not prove a complaisant son-in-law. A few months after his marriage he hotly remonstrated with Burghley on the government's prosecution of Thomas Howard, fourth duke of Norfolk, who was distantly related to him through his kinswoman, Lady Anne Howard, wife of John de Vere, fourteenth earl of Oxford. He projected a hare-brained plot which came to nothing to rescue the duke from the Tower (cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–80, p. 478), and he was currently reported to have threatened to ruin his wife by way of avenging himself on his father-in-law for helping to ruin the Duke of Norfolk (, Baronage, i. 200). Next year (on 22 Sept. 1572) he entreated Burghley to procure him naval employment. But Burghley kept him at home in the belief that the queen, who admired his gallant bearing, was likely to make more adequate provision for him. ‘My Lord of Oxford,’ wrote Gilbert Talbot to his father, the Earl of Shrewsbury, on 11 May 1573, ‘is lately grown into great credit; for the queen's Majesty delighteth more in his personage, and his dancing and valiantness, than any other. I think Sussex doth back him all that he can; if it were not for his fickle head, he would pass any of them shortly’ (, Illustrations, ii. 16).

Court life continued to prove irksome, and in July 1574 he escaped to Flanders without the queen's knowledge or consent. Elizabeth was enraged at his contumacy, and gentlemen pensioners were despatched to bring him back. He returned by the 27th, and in August he and his father-in-law waited on the queen at Bristol to offer apology. The queen was conciliatory and showed the earl renewed attentions (cf., Elizabeth, i. 504, 507; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–80, pp. 484–5).

In 1575 Oxford realised his ambition of foreign travel, and, with the permission of the authorities, made his way to Italy. In October he reached Venice by way of Milan (ib. p. 504). He returned home in the following March laden with luxurious articles of dress and of the toilet. To him is assigned the credit of first introducing from Italy into this country embroidered gloves, sweet-bags, perfumed leather jerkins, and costly washes or perfumes. He ingratiated himself with the queen by presenting her with a pair of perfumed gloves trimmed with tufts or roses of coloured silk. A temporary alienation from his wife followed his Italian tour. He ‘was enticed,’ wrote Burghley in his ‘Diary’ (29 March 1576), ‘by certain lewd persons to be a stranger to his wife.’ Although the difference was arranged, his domestic relations were not thenceforth very cordial.

Oxford's eccentricities and irregularities of temper grew with his years. He attended the queen to Audley End on 26 July 1578, and was present next day when a deputation from the university of Cambridge offered verses and gloves to her and her attendants. Some of the verses were from the pen of Gabriel Harvey [q. v.], who in his official poem (‘Gratulationes Valdenses’) paid the earl conventional compliments, but there was a suspicion that Harvey at the same date