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 plot to rescue from the Tower Thomas Howard, 4th duke of Norfolk, with whom he was distantly connected. In IS79 he insulted Sir Philip Sidney by calling him a “puppy” on the tennis-court at Whitehall. Sidney accordingly challenged Oxford, but the queen forbade him to fight, and required him to apologize on the ground of the difference of rank between the disputants. On Sidney’s refusal and consequent disgrace Oxford is said to have schemed to murder him. The earl sat on the special commission (1586) appointed for the trial of Mary queen of Scots; in 1589 he was one of the peers who tried Philip Howard, earl of Arundel, for high treason; and in 1601 he took part in the trial of Essex and Southampton. It has been suggested that Oxford was the Italianated Englishman ridiculed by Gabriel Harvey in his Speculum Tuscanismi. On his return from a journey to Italy in 1575 he brought back various inventions for the toilet, and his estate was rapidly dissipated in satisfying his extravagant whims. His first wife died in 1588, and from that time Burghley withdrew his support, Oxford being reduced to the necessity of seeking help among the poor men of letters whom he had at one time or another befriended. He was himself a lyric poet of no small merit. His fortunes were partially retrieved on his second marriage with Elizabeth Trentham, by whom he had a son, Henry de Vere, 18th earl of Oxford (1503–1625). He died at Newington, near London, on the 24th of June 1604.

OXFORD, JOHN DE VERE, (1443–1513), was second son of John, the 12th earl, a prominent Lancastrian, who, together with his eldest son Aubrey de Vere, was executed in February 1462. John de Vere the younger was himself at tainted, but two years later was restored as 13th earl. But his loyalty was suspected, and for a short time at the end of 1468 he was in the Tower. He sided with Warwick, the king-maker, in the political movements of 1469, accompanied him in his exile next year, and assisted in the Lancastrian restoration of 1470–1471. As constable he tried John Tiptoft, earl of Worcester, who had condemned his father nine years before. At the battle of Barnet, Oxford was victorious in command of the Lancastrian right, but his men got out of hand, and before they could be rallied Warwick was defeated. Oxford escaped to France. In 1473 he organized a Lancastrian expedition, which, after an attempted landing in Essex, sailed west and seized St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall. It was only after a four months’ siege that Oxford was forced to surrender in February 1474. He was sent to Hammes near Calais, whence, ten years later, in August 1484, he escaped and joined Henry Tudor in Brittany. He fought for Henry in high command at Bosworth, and was rewarded by restoration to his title, estates and hereditary office of Lord Chamberlain. At Stoke on the 16th of June 1486 he led the van of the royal army. In 1492 he was in command in the expedition to Flanders, and in 1497 was foremost in the defeat of the Cornish rebels on Blackheath. Bacon (Hist. of Henry VII. p. 192, ed. Lumby) has preserved a story that when in the summer of 1498 Oxford entertained the king at Castle Hedingham, he assembled a great number of his retainers in livery; Henry thanked the earl for his reception, but fined him 15,000 marks for the breach of the laws. Oxford was high steward at the trial of the earl of Warwick, and one of the commissioners for the trial of Sir James Tyrell and others in May 1502. Partly through ill-health he took little part afterwards in public affairs, and died on the 10th of March 1513. He was twice married, but left no children.

OXFORD, ROBERT DE VERE, (1362–1302), English courtier, was the only son of Thomas de Vere, 8th earl of Oxford, and Maud (d. 1413), daughter of Sir Ralph de Ufford (d. 1346), and a descendant of King Henry III. He became 9th earl of Oxford on his father’s death in 1371, and married Philippa (d. 1412), daughter of his guardian Ingelram de Couci, earl of Bedford, a son-in-law of Edward III., quickly becoming very intimate with Richard II. Already hereditary great chamberlain of England, Oxford was made a member of the privy council and a Knight of the Garter; while castles and lands were bestowed upon him, and he was constantly in the company of the young king. In 1385 Richard decided to send his friend to govern Ireland, and Oxford was given extensive rights in that country and was created marquess of Dublin for life; but although preparations were made for his journey he did not leave England. Meanwhile the discontent felt at Richard’s incompetence and extravagance was increasing, one of the contributory causes thereto being the king’s partiality for Oxford, who was regarded with jealousy by the nobles and who made powerful enemies about this time by divorcing his wife, Philippa, and by marrying a Bohemian lady. The king however, indifferent to the gathering storm, created Vere duke of Ireland in October 1386, and gave him still more extensive powers in that country, and at once matters reached a climax. Richard was deprived of his authority for a short time, and Vere was ordered in vain to proceed to Ireland. The latter was then among those who were accused by the king's uncle Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, and his supporters in November 1387; and rushing into the north of England he gathered an army to defend his royal master and himself. At Radcot Bridge in Oxfordshire, however, his men fled before the troops of Gloucester, and Oxford himself escaped in disguise to the Netherlands. In the parliament of 1388 he was found guilty of treason and was condemned to death, but as he remained abroad the sentence was never carried out. With another exile, Michael de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, he appears to have lived in Paris until after the treaty between England and France in June 1389, when he took refuge at Louvain. He was killed by a boar whilst hunting, and left no children. In 1395 his body was brought from Louvain to England, and was buried in the priory at Earl’s Colne, Essex.

OXFORD, ROBERT HARLEY. (1661–1724), English statesman, commonly known by his surname of Harley, eldest son of Sir Edward Harley (1624–1700), a prominent landowner in Herefordshire, and grandson of the celebrated letter writer Lady Brilliana Harley (c. 1600–1643), was born in Bow Street, Covent Garden, London, on the 5th of December 1661. His school days were passed at Shilton, near Burford, in Oxfordshire, in a small school which produced at the same time a lord high treasurer (Harley), a lord high chancellor (Simon Harcourt) and a lord chief justice of the common pleas (Thomas Trevor). The principles of Whiggism and Nonconformity were instilled into his mind at an early age, and if he changed the politics of his ancestors he never formally abandoned their religious opinions. At the Revolution of 1688 Sir Edward and his son raised a troop of horse in support of the cause of William III., and took possession of the city of Worcester in his interest. This recommended Robert Harley to the notice of the Boscawen family, and led to his election, in April 1689, as the parliamentary representative of Tregony, a borough under their control. He remained its member for one parliament, when he was elected by the constituency of New Radnor, and he continued to represent it until his elevation to the peerage in 1711.

From the first Harley gave great attention to the conduct of public business, bestowing especial care upon the study of the forms and ceremonies of the House. His reputation marked him out as a fitting person to preside over the debates of the House, and from the general election of February 1701 until the dissolution of 1705 he held with general approbation the office