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and said the Earl dying seised of the office 4th of Henry the Eighth, it descended to his nephew and heir John the 14th Earl, an infant, the son of his brother Sir George de Vere; which descent was by hereditary right, as appears by a particular for a livery on the infant's coming of age in the 12th of Henry the Eighth.^[1] And the last-mentioned Earl died seised of the same, in the 18th of the same King; for in the inquisition taken after his death, a deed is recited, bearing date in the 17th year of that reign, wherein he is stiled Great Chamberlain of England.

It appears also by the same inquisition, that the last-mentioned Earl died without issue, and that John Nevill, afterwards Lord Latymer, son of his sister Dorothy, Elizabeth his sister, wife of Sir Anthony Wingfield, knight, and Ursula his sister, wife of Edmund [161] Knightley, esquire, who was afterwards knighted, were his co-heirs; to which John Nevill Lord Latymer, the claimant Lord Percy was heir, being descended in a direct line from Catherine his eldest daughter, who married Henry the 8th Earl of Northumberland, the said John Lord Latymer having left no issue male it therefore followed necessarily, that Lord Percy was the heir of John the 14th Earl of Oxford, who died in 1526, seised of the office to him and his heirs, and was of course entitled to the same.

In 1625 1 Charles I. on the death of Henry the 18th Earl, who died without issue, seised of the Earldom of Oxford, and who had exercised the office of Great Chamberlain of England, the honours and office were claimed by several persons, whose petitions were referred by the King to the House of Lords; and after many hearings thereupon, and the Judges having delivered their unanimous opinion, that the baronies were wholly in his Majesty's hand, "to dispose at his own pleasure," (consequently in abeyance among the co-heirs of John the 14th Earl of Oxford,) and having also delivered their opinions on the other points of the case, the House thereupon offered unto his Majesty their opinion and advice,

That the title of the Earldom of Oxford might be declared by his Majesty to appertain to Robert de Vere, and that he might be accordingly established in that honour to him and to his heirs male; and that the said office of Great Chamberlain of England might be declared by his Majesty to appertain to the Lord Willoughby and his heirs, with a salvo jure to his Majesty.

To these proceedings the petitioner's ancestor, the Earl of Northumberland, the heir general of the said John the 14th Earl, was not a party; he had been a close prisoner in the Tower from 1605 to 1621, and from that time to his death, in 1632, lived in the country in retirement; having never appeared but once in the House of Lords during that period, which was on the 1st of December 1621. An opinion also generally prevailed, that the Earls of Northumberland were descended from John Lord Latymer, who died in 1542, by Catherine Parr, afterwards married to King Henry the Eighth, and not by Dorothy de Vere, eldest sister to John the 14th Earl of Oxford; which mistake appears in Dugdale's Baronage (vol. I. p. 313. Baronagium Genealog. vol. 4. p. 351), a book generally held to be of good authority, and continued to prevail ever since his time, for it occurs also in Edmonson's Peerage, published a few years ago; but could now be clearly shewn to be an error, by the most incontestable evidence. (Inquisitio post mortem Johannis Comit. Oxon. 18 Henry VIII. Sir William Jones's Reports, fol. 109.)

When the rights of the several parties, who urged their claims in 1625, were investigated by the House of Lords, and the Judges were heard thereupon, Chief Justice Crewe, in delivering his opinion, mentioned an award made by King Henry the Eighth, in the 23d year of his reign, confirmed by an act of parliament the same year, between the heir male and the heirs general of John the 14th Earl of Oxford, who died in 1526, 18th of King Henry the Eighth, by which award he supposed the said office to have been given to John the second cousin and heir male, who [162] was the 15th Earl, and his heirs; and something else in lieu thereof to his heirs general; arguing from thence that the office was transferrable.

It was however perfectly clear, that the award and the act confirming it did not, and were not meant to include this high office. The attempt to extend the word offices to this, could not be supported by fair presumption, even if direct proofs that it did not extend to it could not be adduced. For it was not reasonable to presume,