Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

Abstract

The 17th Earl of Oxford was, as the numbering shows, immensely aristocratic, and this was the clue to his career. In Elizabethan society full of new and upcoming men, some of them at the very top, like the Bacons and Cecils — the Boleyns themselves, from whom the Queen descended, were a new family — the Oxford earldom stood out as the oldest in the land. He was the premier earl and, as hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain, took place on the right hand of the Queen and bore the sword of state before her. This office went right back to his ancestor, the first Earl, Aubrey de Vere, upon whom Henry I conferred it in 1133; it must be distinguished from that of the Lord Chamberlain of the Household, who had a great deal of actual work to do. The office of Lord Great Chamberlain of England had become purely honorific and came alive only on grand ceremonial occasions, such as coronations, feasts of the Order of the Garter, and thanksgivings.