the last few years, on an eminently appropriate scale. The whole of Oxfordshire is in the diocese of Oxford and province of Canterbury. The county sends nine members to Parliament: two for the shire, two for the city, two for the university, two for the town of Woodstock, and one for that of Banbury.

The TITLE of EARL of OXFORD was first borne by Sweyn, eldest son of Godwyn, Earl of Kent, on whom it was bestowed by King Harold. But the life of the new-made earl was as brief as that of the royal donor. Sweyn had held the earldom in conjunction with those of Hereford, Somerset, Berks, and Gloucester. The Empress Maud granted it, distinct, to Alberic, or Aubrey, De Vere, in whose family it was retained for many centuries. And here it is necessary to observe that the De Veres were earls of the shire of Oxford, and had specifically granted to them the tertiam denarium, or third penny of the pleas of the county.

Many of the De Veres, Earls of Oxford, were conspicuous for gallantry, for loyalty, and that magnificence of hospitable spirit that was one of the darling virtues of the times in which they flourished. But few noble houses furnished more victims to the semi-barbarous tenor of the middle ages. Robert, who was 'Earl of Oxford in the reign of Richard II. was one of the distinguished favourites of that prince, and was by him created Marquis of Dublin, and Duke of Ireland. These distinctions did not fail to raise much envy among many branches of the ancient nobility; and some refractory barons repaired to arms, for the purpose of humbling the king through the destruction of his favourite. The earl was not backward in replying to their hostile advance. He met them at Radcot-bridge; but his force was speedily routed, and he was fain to save his life by swimming across the river Isis. He escaped to the continent; but died, three years afterwards, in Lorain, his death being occasioned by a wound received from a boar which he held in chase. His corpse was conveyed to England, and was interred at the priory of Colne in Essex, which

structure

Except as to the official earls, or consuls, of the Anglo-Saxon eras.

structure had been founded by his ancestor, Alberic, the first earl. The king attended the funeral in person; and his monument, which possesses much beauty, is still extant, enriched with the, effigies of himself and wife.

In the dreadful war between the houses of Lancaster and York the De Veres were firm adherents to the former family; in consequence of which strenuous and loyal attachment John, Earl of Oxford, and his eldest son, Alberic, were beheaded together, by order of the sanguinary Edward IV. on Tower-hill, in the year 1462. John, the second son of the decapitated peer, now suc-. ceeded to the title, but found his coronet a barren and comfortless trophy. His estates were confiscated, himself imprisoned for twelve years in the castle of Hammes, near Calais, and his countess (sister to the potent Earl of Warwick) was compelled to support existence by the exercise of her needle! This was the Earl John, who accidentally caused the defeat of the Lancastrians at Barnet. A thick mist pervaded the field at the commencement of the battle. In spite of the confusion created by this circumstance, the brave Earl beat his peculiar opponents from their ground; but, when returning to the assistance of Warwick, his brother-in-law, the fog caused a mistake of fatal tendency. The device on the coats of Lord Oxford's soldiers was a radiated star; and that worn as a badge by the partisans of the inimical House of York was a sun with rays. In the dimness of the season Lord Warwick mistook the emblem, and directed a charge to be made on the advancing party of his friends. Oxford, suspecting treachery, fled with 800 of his followers, and the day was in consequence lost!

The earl, however, outlived the severity of fortune, and no trials could lessen the force of his antipathy towards the house of York. He was a principal actor in the combat of Bosworth Field; and was, for services there performed, restored to his possessions, and made Lord High Admiral of England by Heury VII. His Lordship died in the fourth year of King Henry VIII.

and lies buried at the family foundation of Colne.* In conse quence of the death of Aubrey, Earl of Oxfordshire, without' male issue, in the year 1702, the title became extinct in the line of the De Veres, and remains dormant to the present day. But, in the year 1711, Queen Anne bestowed the titular honour of Earl of Oxford, (that is to say, of the city, not of the shire), in conjunction with that of Mortimer, on Robert Harley, lord high

treasurer.

The family of this eminent statesman took name from the town of Harley, in Shropshire, where they were seated before the entrance of William the Conqueror. Sir William De Harley, who possessed the lordship of the paternal manor at the latter part of the eleventh century, was one of the adventurers in the first expedition to the Holy-land, and was signalized, in the opinion of

that

It was this Earl of Oxford whom the cold-blooded Henry VII. chose for the nobleman through whose instance he would at once add to the store of his coffers, and humble the temper of the barons. The king visited De Vere at his castle of Henningham, and was entertained for many days with exuberant hospitality. At his departure, the Earl's tenants and retainers, to the number of some hundreds, ranged themselves in two lines, clad in livery-coats of great magnificence. After passing through this gorgeous channel, King Henry said to his entertainer, "My Lord! I have heard much of your hospitality; but I see it is greater than the speech. These handsome gentlemen and yeomen are, sure, your menial servants?" The Earl smiled, and said, "It may please your Grace, that were not for mine ease; they are most of them my retainers, that are come to do me service at such a time as this, and chiefly to see your Grace." But this smile and inadvertent speech cost the Earl dear. The King started, contracted his brow, and said, "By my faith, my Lord! I thank you for your good cheer, but I may not endure to have my laws broken in my sight. My attorney must speak with you." The Earl was accordingly prosecuted for transgressing the law against retainers, and was fain to compound for no less than 15,000 marks.—The edict by which Henry restricted the barons from placing their badge of cognizance on more than a certain number of retainers, was, assuredly, political; but, to take advantage of bland hospitality, and to make his great friend (the man who had suffered so much in the Lancastrian cause) the first victim to his unrelenting policy, was a proof of frigid ingratitude that cannot be too severely reprobated.

that romantic age, by being present at the conquest of Jerusalem, in consequence of which achievement the Knighthood of the Sepulchre was founded *. Malcolm de Harley, a descendant, was chaplain to Edward I. and likewise possessed the valuable office of escheator on this side Trent to that monarch. The elder brother, Sir Richard Harley, was greatly serviceable to the same king in his Scottish wars, and was chosen one of the representatives for the county of Salop in several successive parliaments. His eldest son, Sir Robert, acquired Brampton Castle (a seat that has been the residence of many of his descendants,) by an intermarriage with the family of Brian de Brampton. Sir Brian Harley, second son of the above-named Sir Robert, fought with such conspicuous gallantry in the French wars of Edward III, that he was recommended by the Black Prince for a vacancy in the order of the Garter; but he died before his election. In the reign of Henry IV. Bryan Harley, Esq. the son of Sir Brian, was governor of Montgomery and Dolverin Castles, which he defended with so much bravery against Owen Glendower, that he was honoured by being allowed to change the family crest, (a buck's head proper,) to a lion rampant, gules, issuing out of a tower, tripled-towered, proper. Through succeeding generations the famiky remained conspicuous for bravery and patriotism, and became, by various marriages, allied to some of the oldest and most noble blood in the kingdom. In the Cromwellian war the loyalty and high spirit of the Harleys were eminently exhibited. It was in this struggle that one of the family, while fighting at the head of a regiment of horse raised by himself, received a musket-ball, which he bore in his body for the long term of fifty-eight years. On the Restoration, the services of this gentleman were duly appreciated. He was offered a peerage by Charles II. but this honour he modestly declined, saying, that" if he accepted it, his zeal and services for the restoration of the ancient government might be represented as proceeding from ambition rather than conscience."

Robert Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, was born in Bow-street, London, and was educated at a private school, (that of the Rev. J. Birch, at Shilton, near Burford, in Oxfordshire,) a seminary concerning which it has been remarked that a Lord High Treasurer, a Lord High Chancellor, a Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and ten Members of the House of Commons, were all contemporaries, as well in Parliament as at school! Seldom will thirteen such pupils sit, at one time, upon the class forms of a private establishment!

The future earl assisted his father in raising a troop of horse, in the patriotical interest, at the period of the great Revolution; and, on the accession of William and Mary, he was elected member of Parliament for Tregony in Cornwall. In 1701-2 he was chosen Speaker of the House of Commons, a situation which he held when Queen Anne came to the crown. In 1704 he was sworn of her Majesty's privy-council, and in the same year was appointed one of the principal secretaries of state, retaining at the same time his chair as Speaker of the House. In 1710 he was constituted Chancellor of the Exchequer, and one of the Commissioners of the Treasury. It was in this year that his life was exposed to the danger of intended assassination. While sitting at Whitehall, as member of the committee of privy-council appointed to examine the Marquis de Guiscard, a French papist, the person under examination suddenly stabbed him with a penknife that he had taken from the clerk's room into which he was first ushered. In the irritation and hurry of the minute the intended assassin was so roughly handled that he died in Newgate (to which prison he was promptly conveyed) in the course of the ensuing week. Mr. Harley recovered from his wound after a short confinement; and the House of Commons, when informed that he would speedily appear abroad, resolved to shew its sense of his exalted merits by a formal congratulation on his escape and recovery. Accordingly, when he entered the house, the Speaker addressed to him a feeling and complimentary speech, to which he returned a suitable answer. It was in consequence of this