the whole, as the son and heir of Mary daughter and sole heir of John the sixteenth earl.[1] The house of peers decided that the dignity of Earl of Oxford was clearly to be adjudged to Robert de Vere; as for the baronies of Bulbeck, Sanford, and Badlesmere, descending to heirs female, they stated them to be in the king's disposal, by reason that John the fourteenth earl had left three sisters his heirs, and the honour could not be divided; but as to the office of Lord Great Chamberlain, it was referred to the judges then attending the parliament, to consider thereof, and make report upon these two points: 1. whether that Robert earl of Oxford, who made the entail thereof temp. Rich. II. upon his heirs male, was at that time seised of it or not; 2. admitting that he was, whether such an office might be conveyed by limiting of uses. Upon which reference, there being only five judges then attending in parliament (the rest being in their circuits), three of them, justices Doddridge and Yelverton and baron Trevor, declared their opinions for the heir general; but the other two, the lord chief justice Crewe and sir John Walter, lord chief baron, declared for the heir male. Though their legal advisers were thus nearly balanced, the peers were guided in their vote by the majority; whereupon Robert lord Willoughby was admitted in the house on the 13th of April, 1626, bearing his staff as Lord Great Chamberlain, and took his place above all the barons, according to the statute of precedency passed by act of parliament in the 31st Hen. VIII.
The next day Robert de Vere received his writ of summons as Earl of Oxford, and coming to parliament the day following, he had his place next to the earl of Arundel[2].
The Lord Willoughby was in the same year created an earl, by the title of Earl of Lindsey, in the county of Lincoln. He is famous in the history of the civil war, and was slain at Edge Hill in 1642. In his family the office of Lord Great Chamberlain descended through seven generations to Robert the seventh Earl of Lindsey and fourth Duke of Ancaster;
