♂Alphonsus de Vere

Alphonsus de Vere (died before 20 December 1328) was an English landholder in Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire, a brother of Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford^W, and the father of the next earl. One of his manors, Great Hormead in Hertfordshire, he held of the king by the service of guarding the queen’s chamber on the night after her coronation. He was the twentieth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son John de Vere (1312–1360).

Lands and heir

Great Hormead was held by serjeanty^W: land granted for a particular personal service to the crown rather than for the usual military service of knights. His other lands were held in the ordinary way. In Buckinghamshire he had the manor of Aston Sanford; in Essex he had houses and lands at Beaumond, held of his brother the earl, and at Allethorn; and in Hertfordshire the manor of Westwick by St Albans, held of the abbot and convent of St Albans.

He died before 20 December 1328, when the king’s writ went out for an inquiry into his lands. Early in 1329 the juries of all three counties found that his son John, aged fifteen and more, was his next heir. In 1331 Alphonsus’s brother the earl died, and John, “his nephew, aged 19 years and more”, inherited the earldom of Oxford.

Lines of descent

Both lines come down from his son John de Vere through John’s daughter Margaret de Vere (died 1398), her daughter Margaret Loveyne (died 1408) and her son Thomas St. Clair (1401–1435) to Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). One continues through Samuel’s son Stephen Dudley (1654–1735) to Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844), the other to Nathaniel’s wife, Anna Smith (1764–1825); the two lines meet again in their daughter Sarah Dudley (1795–1839).

Notes

Sources for his life

His lands and heir are from the inquisition post mortem^W taken after his death (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 7, Edward III, no. 116), on a writ of 20 December 2 Edward III (1328). The juries sat in Essex on 15 and 19 February, in Hertfordshire on 21 February and the Tuesday after Palm Sunday, and in Buckinghamshire on 2 March, all in 3 Edward III (1329). The Buckinghamshire jury found “John, his son, aged 15 years and more, is his next heir”; the Hertfordshire jury for Great Hormead named him “John le Veer”. Great Hormead (“Great Horemad”) was held of the king in chief “by service of guarding the queen’s chamber on the night following the day of her coronation”. Aston Sanford was held of John son of Alan de Wolvereton for half a knight’s fee, Beaumond of the Earl of Oxford for a quarter of a fee, and Allethorn of William de Baud as of his manor of Coringham. The calendar spells his name Alphonsus, Amphonsus or Alponsus, le Veer, de Veer or de Weer.

His brother the earl

No record here names his parents. The inquisition after the death of Robert de Veer, Earl of Oxford, in 1331 (the same volume, no. 379) calls his heir “John de Veer, his nephew, aged 19 years and more”, and in Essex “son of Alphonsus de Veer, aged 19 at the feast of St. Gregory last past”; so Alphonsus was the earl’s brother, or at least his half-brother. When Thomas de Veer, a son of an Earl Robert of Oxford, died, the Essex jury found John, “son and heir of Alphonsus de Veer, aged 16 years”, his next heir of the blood (no. 195).

His wife

None of these inquisitions names his wife. Complete Peerage gives her as Jane, daughter of Sir Richard Foliot.