in Essex, primary seat of the Earls of Oxford Soon after his father's death in 1141, Aubrey III de Vere was recruited by
Empress Matilda. Aubrey's brother-in-law, Geoffrey de Mandeville first earl of Essex, apparently negotiated the offer of the earldom of Cambridge, with a secondary offer of one of four counties if Cambridgeshire was claimed by her kinsman. Aubrey held no land in Oxfordshire at the time, but his eldest son
Aubrey IV was to marry an heiress with manors in that county. Aubrey IV was supposedly an ally of King John, while his brother
Robert, the 3rd Earl was one of the 25 barons of
Magna Carta. His descendant, another Robert, the
9th Earl, was a favourite of King
Richard II who created him
Duke of Ireland. John the
13th Earl was a Lancastrian during the
War of the Roses and
Henry Tudor's commander at the
Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. The
17th Earl has become the most famous of the line because of his emergence as a popular alternative candidate as the actual author of the works of
William Shakespeare (see
Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship). The 17th Earl was a ward and later son-in-law of
Lord Burghley, Queen
Elizabeth I's Secretary of State. On the death of the 20th Earl, without identifiable heirs male, the title became dormant. The earls of Oxford held no
subsidiary titles, and so their
heirs apparent were styled by invented
courtesy titles: initially
Lord Vere, and later
Viscount Bolebec (sometimes spelt
Viscount Bulbeck). The principal Oxford coat of arms or shield was quarterly gules and or (red and yellow) with an argent (white) five-pointed star called a mullet or molet in the first canton. By de Vere family tradition this molet is said to refer to a reappearance of the Star of Bethlehem which showed itself to an earlier De Vere while on a Crusade and thus led him to victory. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the family livery worn by their retainers was orange/tawney decorated with a white molet. A later badge associated with the De Veres is a blue boar. A later shield variation of the De Vere white molet has a smaller blue molet located within the white one but this may be a simple
cadency mark – in heraldry the molet is also used in any family to indicate the third son of a title holder. The third son bears his father's arms differenced with a molet. A confusion between the de Vere white molet and Edward IV's sunburst and white rose is said to have led to the friendly fire incident between Neville's men and De Vere's men at the
Battle of Barnet in 1471. Fighting in fog, the Nevilles (former Yorkists) fired on their De Vere (staunch Lancastrian) allies and thus brought about the collapse of the Lancastrian centre and right. Both contingents began to rout crying "treachery". ==List of title holders==