John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford
John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford, Lord Great Chamberlain (c. 1482 – 21 March 1540) was an English peer and courtier. Career. John de Vere, born about 1482, was 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, in the earldom. De Vere had two stepbrothers, William Courtenay and Walter Courtenay, and a stepsister, Katherine Courtenay, by his mother's second marriage, before 1491, to Sir Walter Courtenay  (d. 7 November 1506), a younger son of Sir Philip Courtenay of Powderham, Devon, by Elizabeth Hungerford. De Vere was an Esquire of the Body at the funeral of Henry VII in 1509, and was knighted by Henry VIII 25 September 1513 at Tournai, following the Battle of the Spurs. He attended Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, and at his meeting with the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, at Dover in 1522. On 19 December 1526 Oxford was appointed Lord Great Chamberlain for life and was made a Knight of the Garter on  21 October 1527. He signed the Lords' petition against Cardinal Wolsey on 1 December 1529, and was appointed to the Privy Council before 22 March 1531. In 1531 it was reported from Venice that Oxford was 'a man of valour and authority ... and it is his custom always to cavalcade with two hundred horse'. Oxford bore the crown at Queen Anne Boleyn's coronation in April 1533, but later served on the commission which tried the Queen on 15 May 1536. On 15 October 1537 he attended the christening of the future King Edward VI, and on 12 November following  was present at the funeral of Queen Jane Seymour. On 2 and 3 December 1538 Oxford served on the panel of peers at the treason trials of the Marquess of Exeter, and Lord Montagu. Oxford and his son, John, were in the King's retinue at the reception of Anne of Cleves at Blackheath. Oxford was reputedly the first Protestant earl of Oxford. He patronised a company of players for which he commissioned John Bale to write plays from 1534 to 1536. As Lord Great Chamberlain and a favourite of Henry VIII, about 1537 he directed Bale to write anti -Catholic propaganda plays for Richard Morison's campaign against the Pope. Oxford died 21 March 1540 at his manor of Colne, Essex and was buried on 12 April at Castle Hedingham. Marriages and issue. Oxford's first wife was Christian Foderingey (b. circa 1481, d. before 4 November 1498), daughter of Thomas Foderingey (circa 1446–1491) of Brockley, Suffolk, by Elizabeth Doreward (c. 1473–1491), daughter of William Doreward of Doreward’s Hall in Bocking, Essex. The couple had no children. Oxford's second wife was Elizabeth Trussell, daughter of Edward Trussell (c. 1478 – 16 June 1499) of Kibblestone (Cublesdon), Staffordshire, and  Margaret Don, the daughter of Sir John Don (d. 1503) by Elizabeth Hastings (d. 1508). They had four sons and three daughters.