Person Page - 1275

     1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

     3rd Earl of Clare.

     2nd Earl of Clare.

     1st Earl of Clare.

     John de Vere (before 1490–1540), 15th Earl of Oxford, was an English aristocrat and courtier.

John de Vere was a Protestant, the son of John de Vere and Alice Kilrington (alias Colbroke), and the great-grandson of Richard de Vere, 11th Earl of Oxford, succeeding his second cousin, John de Vere, 14th Earl of Oxford.

Oxford was Esquire of the body in 1509, knighted by Henry VIII in 1513, and in attendance to Henry VIII during meetings with the French King Francis I of France and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1520.

In 1529, he had a life grant of the great chamberlainship and signed the lords' petition against Wolsey. He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1530 and became a royal councillor in 1531.

Oxford bore the crown at Anne Boleyn's coronation, but later served on commissions trying her and her alleged lovers in 1536 and also the panels for the Courtenay conspiracy trials in 1538.

A Venetian report in 1531 asserted '[that he was] a man of valour and authority … and it is his custom always to cavalcade with two hundred horse’ (CSP Venice, 1527–33, 295). He died on 21 March 1540 and was buried at Castle Hedingham."

The fifteenth earl of Oxford married twice:

First, Christian Foderingey (b. c. 1481, d. in or before 1498, the daughter of Sir Thomas Foderingey (c.1446–1491), Lord of South Acre and his wife Elizabeth Doreward (c.1473–1491) the granddaughter of John Doreward (d. 1420) serjeant-at-law and Speaker of the House of Commons. They had no children.

Second, Elizabeth Trussell, the daughter of Edward Trussell of Kibblestone, Staffordshire and, Margaret Dunn. They had seven children.¹ 15th Earl of Oxford.

     Countess of Oxford.

     1st Baron Sheffield of Butterwick.

     1st Baron Holles.

     Earl of Surrey. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was an English aristocrat, and one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry.

     4th Duke of Norfolk. Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk (10 March 1536 — 2 June 1572) was an English nobleman.

Norfolk was the son of the poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. He was taught as a child by John Foxe, the Protestant martyrologist, who remained a lifelong recipient of Norfolk's patronage. His father predeceased his grandfather, so Norfolk inherited the Dukedom of Norfolk upon the death of his grandfather, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk in 1554.

Norfolk was a second cousin of Queen Elizabeth I of England through her mother's family and was trusted with public office despite his family's history and (although he claimed to be a Protestant) his prior support for Catholicism.

Thomas Howard's first wife was Mary FitzAlan, who after the death of her brother Henry in 1556 became heiress to the Arundel Estates of her father Henry FitzAlan, 19th Earl of Arundel. She died after a year of marriage having given birth to a son, Philip Howard, who became 20th Earl of Arundel. It is from this marriage that the present Duke of Norfolk takes his name of 'FitzAlan-Howard' and why his seat is in Arundel. Though her funeral effigy is there, Mary FitzAlan was never buried at Framlingham, but at the church of St. Clement Without, Temple Bar and then (under the direction of her grandson's will) at Arundel.

Norfolk next married another heiress, Margaret Audley, widow of Sir Henry Stanley and daughter of Thomas Audley, 1st Baron Audley of Walden.

Margaret's children by her marriage to Norfolk were two boys (Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk and Lord William Howard, ancestor of the Earls of Carlisle) and two girls. Both Mary FitzAlan and Margaret Audley have their tomb effigies at St Michael the Archangel, Framlingham. [1]

After Margaret's death, Norfolk married Elizabeth Leyburne, widow of Thomas Dacre, 4th Baron Dacre of Gillesland.

Norfolk's three sons by his first two wives, Philip, Thomas, and William, married, respectively, Anne, Marie, and Elizabeth Dacre. The Dacre sisters were the daughters of Elizabeth Leyburne by her marriage to Thomas Dacre and were, therefore, step-sisters to Norfolk's sons.

Queen Elizabeth imprisoned Norfolk in 1569 for scheming to wed Mary, Queen of Scots.

Following his release, he participated in the Ridolfi plot with King Philip II of Spain to put Mary on the English throne and restore Catholicism in England, though the strength of the evidence for his participation in the Ridolfi plot is doubted by some[citation needed]. He was executed for treason in 1572. He is buried at St Peter ad Vincula within the walls of the Tower of London.

Norfolk's lands and titles were forfeit, although much of the estate was later restored to his sons. The title of Duke of Norfolk was restored, four generations later, to Thomas Howard.¹

     18th Earl of Arundel.

     17th Earl of Arundel.