OXFORD, EDWARD DE VERE, 17TH EARL (in the Vere line) of (1550-1604), son of John de Vere, the 16th earl, was born on April 12, 1550. He studied at Queen's and St. John's Colleges, Cambridge. He was known as Lord Bolebec or Bulbeck until he succeeded in 1562 to the earldom and to the hereditary dignity of great chamberlain of England. As a royal ward the boy lived under the care of Lord Burghley, who in 1571 gave him his eldest daughter, Anne, in marriage. Oxford wished for a military or a naval command, but Burghley hoped that he would win a high position at court. His accomplishments secured Elizabeth's favour, but he offended her by going to Flanders without her consent in 1574, and more seriously in 1582 by a duel with one of her gentle men, Thomas Knyvet. In 1579 he insulted Sir Philip Sidney on the tennis-court at Whitehall.
Sidney challenged Oxford, but the queen forbade him to fight, and required him to apologize on the ground of their difference of rank. On Sidney's refusal and consequent disgrace Oxford is said to have schemed to murder him. The earl sat on the special corn
mission (1586) for the trial of Mary queen of Scots; he took part in the trials of Philip Howard, earl of Arundel, for high treason in 1589, and of Essex and Southampton in roor. In 1575 he brought back from Italy various inventions for the toilet, and his estate was rapidly dissipated in satisfying his extravagant whims. His first wife died in 1588, and from that time Burghley withdrew his support, Oxford being reduced to the necessity of seeking help among the poor men of letters whom he had befriended. He was a lyric poet of no small merit. His fortunes were partially re trieved on his second marriage with Elizabeth Trentham, by whom he had a son, Henry de Vere, 18th earl of Oxford (1593— 1625). He died at Newington, near London, on June 24, 1604.
His poems, from various anthologies--the Paradise of Dainty Devices, England's Parnassus, Phoenix Nest, England's Helicon—and elsewhere, were collected by Dr. A. B. Grosart in vol. iv of the Fuller Worthies Library (1876).