Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/418

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NOTES AND QUERIES, in s. vm. NOV. 22, 1913.

It will be noticed that in the foregoing will the Lady Wright is referred to as " my daughter-in-law," or, as we should now say, stepdaughter. It is possible that his wife was only married once previously, and to a Farnham, and the " Francis Ham " she is said to have married may be a misreading of ''Farnham." No relationship to Sir George Wright is stated in the will.

A. STEPHENS DYER.

207, Kingston Road, Teddington.

Foster in his ' Alumni Oxonienses,' iv- 1686, states that Sir George Wright was the son of Thomas Wright of Debham, Kent ; and he also describes him as " pleb. fil."

The following list of wills of Wright may be of service :

Sir Robert Wright, dated 21 Nov., 1608, proved P.C.C. 27 March, 1610 (29 Wingfield).

Sir George Wright, dated 20 Nov., 1623, proved P.C.C. 21 Jan., 1624, and 29 June, 1631 (7 Byrde). Also Admon. de bonis non, 20 Aug., 1658.

Dame Dorothy Wright, proved P.C.C. 1631 (103 St. John).

Mary Wright, proved P.C.C. 1654 (475 Allchin).

J6hn Farnham. of Salisbury Court, Esq., dated 9 Dec., 28 Eliz., proved P.C.C. 22 May, 1587 (24 Spencer).

Sir Robert Wright married, on 24 Dec., 1588, Dorothy (Walwyn), the widow of John Farnham. She was buried at Rich- mond in 1638. How were Sir Robert and Sir George Wright related ?

W. G. D. FLETCHER, F.S.A.

ALBERIC DE VERB (11 S. viii. 330). Your correspondent is slightly wrong in stating that the last Earl of Oxford died about 1625. The last earl who held the ancestral castle of Hedingham, Essex, did, indeed, die in 1625, but he was succeeded in the earldom by his second cousin Robert, who, dying in 1632, was followed by his son Aubrey, the last De Vere Earl of Oxford, who died 12 March, 1702/3.

As to what family is the nearest repre- sentative of the De Veres depends whether we look for the heir -general of the first or of the last earl. If we seek the former, we must follow the descents of the sisters and coheirs of John de Vere, fourteenth (or more correctly, fifth) earl, who died 1526. The two such sisters whose descen- dants still survive were Dorothy, Baroness Latimer. and Dame Elizabeth Wingfield, wife of ' Sir Anthony Wingfield, K.G. If, on the other hand, we want the heir-general

of the last earl, we find him in the Duke of St. Albans, the first Duke of St. Albans marrying Diana, the only daughter who married of the said last earl.

" The female to whom the withered honours fell in 1625 " may refer to Eliza- beth Trentham, a distant cousin of Henry, Earl of Oxford (the last earl who held Hedingham). To this Elizabeth Heding- ham passed on the death (1654) of the widow of the said Earl Henry. Perhaps, however, the allusion refers to the Dowager Countess Diana, the daughter and coheir of William Cecil, Earl of Exeter, who in 1629 married Thomas Bruce, first Earl of Elgin.

REGINALD M. GLENCROSS. , Makshufa, Harefield Boad, Uxbridge.

Aubrey (Albericus) de Ver (or Vere) I. very probably was granted the lordship of Hed- ingham, but as he first appears in Domesday it is quite possible that the grant may have been made to his father, or some other pre- decessor, who died before 1086. Unfor- tunately his antecedents are unknown. The original spelling of the name seems to be Ver, and it is supposed to be derived from Ver in the Cotentin (see 'D.N.B.'); but I believe that there is no record evidence con- necting the English Veres with Ver or any other place across the Channel, so it would seem probable that Aubrey I. was either a younger son or a new man. A possible ancestor or connexion may be found in an Aubrey de Ver who witnesses a charter of Conan, Count of Brittany (1056-66), as one of his barons (' Cal. Documents France,' No. 1168). Aubrey is not a Breton name, and the Cotentin adjoined Brittany, so he might perhaps be a Norman holding lands on both sides of the border.

The story that Aubrey I. " came in with the Conqueror, Earl of Guynes," accepted by Chief Justice Crew in his speech to the House of Lords in 1626, arose from the fact that Aubrey III. held the comte of Guisnes for a few years in right of his first wife (' Geoffrey de Mandeville,' pp. 188-9). The name was sometimes spelt Veer, as in the charter of the Empress Maud conferring an earldom on Aubrey III. (ibid., pp. 180-83), and it was probably this spelling which gave rise to a baseless theory that the family came from Veere in Walcheren.

Aubrey VI., twentieth Earl of Oxford, died in 1703, but Hedingham Castle, or all that was left thereof, had passed on the death of Henry, eighteenth earl, in 1625, to a relative of his mother ; if I remember rightly, fuller particulars will be found in