Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/248

Vere The sons were Thomas (1337–1371), who became eighth Earl of Oxford, and was father of Robert de Vere, ninth earl of Oxford and duke of Ireland [q. v.]; Aubrey, who succeeded his nephew as tenth earl [q. v.] in 1393, and is separately noticed; and two, John and Robert, who predeceased their father. John married a daughter of Hugh Courtenay, earl of Devon (d. 1377), who took for her second husband, Sir Andrew Lutterel of Chilton, and died on 7 Aug. 1395 (, p. 249; Testamenta Vetusta, p. 127). Oxford's daughter, Margaret, married, first (before 1361), Henry, lord Beaumont (d. 1369); secondly, Sir Nicholas Louvaine of Penshurst, seneschal of Ponthieu from 1364, who made his will on 20 Sept. 1375; and thirdly, John, lord Devereux (d. 1393), whom she survived (ib. p. 98; Fœdera, iii. 709, 739, 920). The daughter Isabel mentioned by Dugdale as married first to Sir John Courtenay, and secondly to Sir Oliver Dynham, was really the daughter of Hugh, the fourth earl. Courtenay died in 1273, and Dynham about 1298. Oxford in his will left a thousand marks for the marriage of ‘Maud my daughter.’ Unless we ought to read Margaret, there is no other mention of her. His widow died in May 1366 (Complete Peerage, vi. 164). Oxford's privy seal is engraved in the ‘Proceedings’ of the Archæological Institute, 1850, p. 189.

[Rymer's Fœdera, original edition; Galfrid Le Baker's Chronicle, ed. Maunde Thompson; Murimuth, Avesbury, and Walsingham, Historia Anglicana (in the Rolls Ser.); Jean le Bel, ed. Polain; Froissart, ed. Luce; Dugdale's Baronage; Leland's Collectanea, ed. Hearne; Nicolas's Testamenta Vetusta; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage; Maxwell-Lyte's Dunster and its Lords.] 

VERE, JOHN, thirteenth (1443–1513), was the second but eldest surviving son of John de Vere (1408?–1462), twelfth earl, and his wife Elizabeth Howard, suo jure baroness Plaiz, and cousin of Sir John Howard [q. v.], created Duke of Norfolk by Richard III (Complete Peerage, vi. 167, 254). His father (b. 1408?), grandson of Aubrey de Vere, tenth earl [q. v.], served in France in 1436 and 1441, acted as one of the English plenipotentiaries at the peace conference of Oye in 1439, and was one of the nobles who undertook in 1454 to keep the seas for three years (, i. 196;, ii. 493). He sat in the privy council from that year (Ordinances P. C. vi. 167). He was a strong Lancastrian. In 1455 he was bringing a force to the battle of St. Albans, but did not arrive in time (Paston Letters, i. 333). Shortly after Edward IV's accession he was arrested with his eldest son Aubrey (who, according to one version, betrayed him) on a charge of arranging for a Lancastrian landing on the east coast (, ii. 289; Chronicles of the White Rose, p. 11). They were condemned to death by the constable's court, and executed on Tower Hill on 20 Feb. 1462 (ib. p. 12; but cf., p. 652). His widow (whom he married before 26 June 1429) was living in 1474 (Paston Letters, iii. 106). Like his successor, Oxford figures largely in the Paston correspondence. His son Aubrey leaving no issue by his wife Anne Stafford (d. 1472), daughter of the first Duke of Buckingham, his second son, John, became thirteenth earl.

John de Vere petitioned the king in the parliament of 1463–4 for the reversal of the attainder and forfeiture of the Duke of Ireland, which had been procured in 1388 ‘by the straunge meanes and gret power’ of Henry, earl of Derby, acting with others, and confirmed by him when he became king after having been reversed in 1397. His prayer was granted with a salvo for the king and some other holders of lands affected (Rot. Parl. v. 549). Oxford figured among the ‘knights of the Bath’ created on 23 May 1464 for the queen's coronation ( p. 783). Nevertheless, he fell under suspicion of conspiring with the Lancastrians, and was thrown into the Tower in November 1468. He obtained his release, however, before 7 Jan. 1469 (, ii. 335). On the king's return to London in the autumn from Middleham Castle, where he had been virtually the prisoner of the Earl of Warwick, Oxford was noticed to be out of favour (Paston Letters, ii. 389). He followed Warwick into France the next year, and, returning with him in September, took a leading part in the restoration of Henry VI (, p. 658;, p. 61; Paston Letters, ii. 411; , ii. 361). He had the satisfaction of passing sentence of death (15 Oct.) as constable upon John Tiptoft, earl of Worcester [q. v.], who in that capacity had condemned his father and brother in 1462. After being very active in precautions against Edward's landing in the eastern counties, Oxford fought against him at Barnet, where, as high constable, he led the van. He routed Hastings on the king's left and drove him off the field, but his men ‘fell to ryfling,’ which prevented him from bringing assistance to the hard-pressed Warwick until it was too late, and, though some of his followers were brought back into action, their silver ‘mullet’ badges were mistaken in the mist for Edward's sun ‘with stremys,’ and