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JOHN DE VERE, 15TH EARL OF OXFORD
John de Vere (before 1490 - 1540), 15th Earl of Oxford, was an English aristocrat and courtier.

John de Vere was a Protestant, the son of John de Vere and Alice Kilrington (alias Colbroke), and the great-grandson of Richard de Vere, 11th Earl of Oxford, succeeding his second cousin, John de Vere, 14th Earl of Oxford.

The fifteenth earl of Oxford married twice:

First, Christian Foderingey (b. c. 1481, d. in or before 1498, the daughter of Sir Thomas Foderingey (c.1446-1491), Lord of South Acre and his wife Elizabeth Doreward (c.1473-1491) the granddaughter of John Doreward (d. 1420) serjeant-at-law and Speaker of the House of Commons. They had no children.

Second, Elizabeth Trussell, the daughter of Edward Trussell of Kibblestone, Staffordshire and, Margaret Dunn. They had seven children:

Elizabeth de Vere
John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford
Frances de Vere, wife of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and mother of the fourth Duke of Norfolk
Aubrey de Vere, whose grandson, Robert, became the 19th Earl of Oxford
Robert de Vere
Anne de Vere
Geoffrey de Vere
Oxford was Esquire of the body in 1509, knighted by Henry VIII in 1513, and in attendance to Henry VIII during meetings with the French King François I and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1520.

In 1529, he had a life grant of the great chamberlainship and signed the lords' petition against Wolsey. He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1530 and became a royal councillor in 1531.

Oxford bore the crown at Anne Boleyn's coronation, but later served on commissions trying her and her alleged lovers in 1536 and also the panels for the Courtenay conspiracy trials in 1538.

A Venetian report in 1531 asserted '[that he was] a man of valour and authority … and it is his custom always to cavalcade with two hundred horse’ (CSP Venice, 1527-33, 295). He died on 21 March 1540 and was buried at Castle Hedingham."
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The Knights of the Garter Under Henry VIII
This special feature includes all the men who were Knights of the Garter during Henry's reign (1509-47). Fifty-two of them are still represented by engraved and enamelled plates, placed in the stall they occupied during the Order's ceremonies in St George's Chapel. Although initially intended as memorials, by Henry's reign these plates were being introduced to St George's within a year of each Knight's installation. Each plate featured the Knight's arms and name, and often his motto and the offices he held. Plates were taken down when a Knight was degraded for treason, and in other cases, we have no evidence that a plate was ever installed, so plates do not survive for all of Henry's Garter Knights. The stall plates were left in place on each Knight's death, and remain as memorials to the men who have been elected to the Order over the centuries.
The Order of the Garter, the senior British Order of chivalry, was founded by King Edward III in 1348. Based at St George's Chapel within the walls of Windsor Castle, it was a fellowship of the most senior men in the realm, who swore to uphold the chivalric ideals of the Order and who took as their symbol a garter inscribed with the words Honi soit qui mal y pense ('Dishonour to him who thinks evil'). The Order consisted of the monarch, the Prince of Wales and twenty-four other knights. Foreigners could also be elected, as 'Stranger Knights'.
When Henry VIII became King in 1509, he was already a Knight of the Order, having been installed, as Duke of York, in 1495. As King, however, he automatically became Sovereign, or head, of the Order. At the start of his reign, the existing Knights of the Garter were men appointed to the Order by his father, Henry VII, and by his Yorkist predecessors Edward IV and Richard III. Over the next twenty-five years, Henry appointed a further fifty-three men as Knights of the Garter. His final appointment, in 1545, was to be Thomas Wriothesley, first Earl of Southampton and a nephew of Thomas Wriothesley (d.1534) who had been Garter King of Arms, herald of the Order. It was the Earl of Southampton who was to bring the news of the King's death to Parliament just over a year later.
© The Dean & Canons of Windsor

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John De Vere and Queen Ann Boleyn

1482-1540

Nominated 1527
Knighted on the French campaign of 1513. A supporter of Anne Boleyn, he played a leading role at her coronation, although he was later to be one of those who tried her for treason.

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