Page:History of Norfolk 1.djvu/106

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year, making proof of his age, had livery of his lands. In 1434, he was licensed to travel to the Holy Land, with twelve persons in his company; the year after he went into Picardy, for the relief of Calais, and doing his homage, had livery of all those lands which, by the death of Sir John Howard, Knt. in 1437, came to Elizabeth his wife. In 1438, he was joined with John Duke of Norfolk, to treat for a perpetual peace between France and England: in 1453, he was one of those great men that undertook to keep the seas for three years next following, being allowed the subsidies of tunnage and poundage, then granted for that service; but when Edward IV. gained the crown, the Lancastrian party (of which this Earl was one) soon fell; for that King, in the first year of his reign, called a parliament, wherein Henry VI. and all his lineage, were disinherited, and this Earl, and Aubrey, his eldest son, attainted and beheaded, on the 26th of February, 1461, and were buried in the Austin Friars, London. His estates were all seized, except those which were of the proper inheritance of his widow, all which she retained, and among them these manors and advowsons, which she held in her own right, and name also, till 1472, at which time John, her son, (who after was Earl of Oxford,) kept St. Michael's Mount in Cornwal against the King, which made her fear ill measures might be taken against her; and therefore, to secure her estate, and prepare against the worst, she and her feoffees, William Grey Bishop of Ely, Sir Thomas Montgomery, Gilbert de Benham, Roger Townshend, and others, infeoffed Richard Duke of Gloucester (who was fourth son of Richard Duke of York, brother to the King) in the manors and advowsons of Garboldisham Howards, Fersfield, Weetyng, Toftrees, Knapton, Eastwinch, Wiggenhall, and Titleshale, in Norfolk, and Chelesworth, Eastbergholt, and Brookhad in Suffolk; Fulbourne, or Foulmere, and Haukeston, in Cambridgeshire, and several others in other counties, by two deeds, one dated the 9th of Jan. 12th Edward IV. the other the 9th of Febr. 13th Edward IV. and by this means she enjoyed them to her death, and left them to

John de Vere her son, who after became the 13th Earl of Oxford, Lord Bulbec, Samford, and Scales, Great Chamberlain, and Admiral of England, who, after his father's death, adhered to King Henry VI. in order to his restoration; and after the loss of the battle at Barnet, he entered St. Michael's Mount in Cornwal, and kept it some time against the King; but being at last taken, he and the Lord Beaumont were sent to safe custody in the castle of Hamms in Picardy, and in the next parliament was attainted, with George his brother. But in the second of Richard III. being still prisoner in that castle, and observing what hopes of aid Henry Earl of Richmond had from the French and others, in order to gain the crown; he and Sir James Blount, the Governor of the castle, and Sir John Fortescue, Porter of the gates of Calais, got thence, and came to Montarges, to the Earl of Richmond, who received him with much joy, being a person of great nobility and integrity, and very