256 THE HISTORY OF NEWMARKET. [Book XT. 



died at Stamford, March 18, 1687-8, and was succeeded by 

 his only surviving son John, Lord Burghley, the 5th earl. 

 The Earl of Exeter was constituted lord-lieutenant of the 

 county of Northampton, July 17, 1662, and on March 16, 1666, 

 Henry, Earl of Peterborough, was joined with him for the 

 better execution of that office, but soon after the former earl 

 undertook the management of the eastern division and the 

 latter the western division of the county. 



^^' Aubrey de Vere, 20th and last Earl OF OXFORD, K.G. 

 This nobleman succeeded his father, Robert, 19th Earl of 

 Oxford (who fell at the siege of Maestrich, where he com- 

 manded a regiment chiefly composed of English volunteers), 

 in 1632, when he was but six years of age, and in ward to 

 Charles I. In 1648 he had command of a regiment of English 

 infantry in the service of the States-general. During the civil 

 wars he espoused the royal cause, and suffered much in con- 

 sequence, but after the Restoration he was sworn of the Privy 

 Council, made a Knight of the Garter, and appointed lord- 

 lieutenant of the county of Essex. He married, ist, Anne, 

 daughter and co-heir of Paul Viscount Bayning, by whom he 

 had no issue. He married, 2ndly, Diana, daughter of George 

 Kirk, Esq., one of the grooms of the bed-chamber to Charles L, 

 by whom he had four daughters, who died young, and Diana 

 married to Charles Beauclerk (illegitimate son of Charles H.), 

 Duke of St. Albans. This lady eventually became sole heiress 

 of her father, and representative of Aubrey de Vere, last Earl 

 of Oxford. The earl died " at a miserable cottage," March 

 12, 1702, and with him the very ancient earldom of Oxford, 

 which had passed through twenty generations, is supposed to 

 become extinct. Chief Justice Crew, on one occasion, thus 

 referred to the De Veres : " I heard a great peer of this realm, 

 and a learned say, when he lived there was no king in 

 Christendom had such a subject as Oxford. He came in with 

 the Conqueror, Earl of Guynes ; shortly after the Conquest, 

 made Great Chamberlain of England, above five hundred 

 years ago, by Henry I. the Conqueror's son, brother to Rufus; 

 by Maud, the empress, Earl of Oxford ; confirmed and 



