Virtual Grub Street: The Death of Sir Edward Vere, son of the 17th Earl of Oxford and Anne Vavasour.

In this series:

Sir Edward Vere to Sir William Browne. August 14, 1603.
Pending
The Death of Sir Edward Vere, son of the 17th Earl of Oxford and Anne Vavasour.
Pending

Tracing the life of the love-child of Edward de Vere, the 17^th Earl of Oxford, and Anne Vavasour, is no easy task. We catch up with him again shortly before momentous affairs befall the Vere family.

In the years immediately before, the Reverend John Davenport writes to Lady Mary Vere, wife of Horatio Vere, “Mr. Sedgwick wrote to me for a prayer for Sir Edward Vere.” The date of the letter is June 30, 1628. Of Mr. Sedgwick, we are informed in a footnote,

Obadiah Sedgwick took the degrees at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, about 1620, and afterwards became Chaplain to Lord Vere, with whom he went into the low countries.[1]

This is followed by what may be the source of mistaken biography that has persisted.

Sir Edward Vere, was the son of John Vere, the sixteenth Earl of Oxford, and the nephew of Horatio, Lord Vere.[2]

Mr. Davenport, the 19^th century genealogist, does not does not manage to distinguish between Sir Edward and his father Edward, Earl of Oxford. Clements Markham was apparently at a loss for what to make of such a claim in his later The Fighting Veres.

There was also a kinsman named Edward Vere, whose precise relationship is not clearly made out, but who served with great distinction under Sir Horace, and was slain at Bois le Duc.[3]

This, indeed, is the illegitimate son of the 17^th Earl of Oxford (not the 16^th) — though neither historian could make out the fact — and he is indeed on the way to his death “at Bois le Duc” shortly after the Reverend's letter.

The confusion on the part of Davenport is due to the fact that Horace Vere had a brother, John Vere, whose son Edward was a lieutenant. Also under Horace’s command. Our Sir Edward was a colonel, by this point, of many distinguished years’ service under Sir Horace in the Netherlands. Our Edward, we may be pleased to know, has had such success in his profession that he can afford servants including a chaplain Obadiah Sedgwick. It being summer, Sir Edward and crew are participating in the 1628 campaign in the Netherlands rather than at home in England.

In the same exchange of letters between the Rev. Davenport and Lady Vere we learn that William Laud, anathema to Puritan nonconformists, has just become Bishop of London. It is news to her as she herself is summering in the Hague in order to be near her husband.

But I have hoped in vain, for to this day we are in the same condition as before delayed to the finishing of this session in Parliament, which now is inhappily concluded without any satisfying contentment to the King or commonwealth. Threatenings were speedily revived against us by the new bishop of London, Dr. Laud, even the next day after the conclusion of their session. We expect a fierce storm from the enraged spirit of the two bishops.[4]

All of the parties that compose “us,” then — Sir Edward included — are devout Puritans and Parliamentarians as sides are being drawn up for the looming English Civil War.

By this point in our history, Lady Mary Vere has born a daughter also named Mary. That daughter married Sir Roger, 1st Baronet Townshend, sometime in this year but no exact date has yet been found. They occupied Sir Roger’s seat at Raynham Hall in the Summer Parlor of which hangs the only extant portrait of our Sir Edward Vere (a black and white photo of which illustrates this essay).

Sir Edward Vere would spend one more winter back in England. It would appear that he was on so familiar a footing with Horace and Lady Vere’s acquaintances in London that he likely had lodgings with or near them in the city. Whether he traveled with them to Horace’s Baronial seat, Tilbury Manor, or to Kirby Hall in Hedingham, I've yet to discover. Interestingly, some of the Reverend’s letters to Lady Mary are addressed to Hackney.

The rest we learn from “H.H. quarter-master to my lord General Vere his Regiment.”

On Satterday at night the 18^th of August[, 1629,] my Leiutenant Coronell Sr Edward Vere had the commaund in the Trenches, and on sunday his Excel. [the Prince of Orange] who often times ventered his person very much, came downe to the Gallery, to se[e] the approaches a little beefore my Lieutenant Coronel was relieued. Hee went to shew the Prince the Workes & the sapp.[5] whiles the companyes being relieued were drawne off as farr as the little Sconce, my Lieutenant Coronel hauing shown his Excel. the sap, and taking his leaue of him, walking of[f] with Sr Tho. Conway being a tall man, came that vnhappy shott thorow the blind and shot him behind in his head, that It perisht his braynes, That night being brought vp into his Hut in ye quarter, He cald vpon the LORD, that he was his shield, his buckler, and defence, and besought the LORD in mercy to pardon his sinns in Christ, & that he desired none in Heauen or Earth but Christ and his righteousnesse, and so vttered many comfortable sentences sauouring of a gracious resolution, and with in foure dayes after It pleased GOD, to call him to his mercy, and so wee lost our Lieutenant Coronel, whose extraordinary valour Sufficiencie, and compleat abilities for a commander, as they were well knowne vnto vs: so was his losse exceedingly lamented by his Excel. and the chiefes of our Army.

My Lord Generall Vere, my Lord of Oxford, many Captaines, officers, voluntaries, and Gentlemen of quallity, who had bin at his funerall in [Bomonel] returning home, that night our Regiment had the gard in the approaches, and a ciuill worthy Gentleman of my Lords company of Dort, one Master Mullinax, that bare my Lieutenant Coronels sword before his Corps that day, going to see the sappe was the first that night wch followed him the way of all flesh.[6]

It is more than likely that the Catholic sniper, unable to see clearly through the blind, thought he was assassinating the Prince.

The “Lord of Oxford” referred to, at the funeral, was Robert de Vere, the 19^th Earl. The “Lord General Vere” was Horace. Those and other loose ends must await our epilogue.

[1] Davenport, A. Benedict. A History and Genealogy of the Davenport Family: In England and America (1851) ... 314-16@316n.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Markham, Clements. The Fighting Veres (1888). 384-5.

[4] Davenport, 314.

[5] sapp] a covered trench.

[6] A HISTORICALL Relation Of the Famous Siege of the Busse (1630), 24.