18 THE DESCENT OF THE EARLDOM OF OXFORD.

berland of whom it is related, by Simeon of Durham, that ho received that honour after the slaughter of bishop Walcher, which occurred in 1080 ; but, having little success in the difficulties which beset his position, he deserted his charge, and went home to his own country' — that is, to Xormandj ; after which the Conqueror appointed Robert de Mowbray in his room.^ Albericus de Vere.the first of his name in England, came also from Normandy.- He held in chief, at the Domesday survey-, lands in the counties of Middlesex, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Essex, and Suffolk. .Among these was Kensington in the first mentioned county, in after ages the residence of our kings, the church of which he ga^-e to the abbey of Abingdon, whence arose the name of St. Mar}^ Abbat's, still attached to the church of Kensington. He also had Colne in Essex, since called Earl's Colne, where the Earls were customarily buried in a priory of their own foundation ; and Hedingham, in the same county, where they erected their magnificent Norman castle. The second Aubrey de Vere, son of the former, made an illustrious alliance by marr3^ing Adeliza, daughter of Gilbert de Clare, earl of Hertford; and, in the year 1106, king Henry the First made him his chamberlain in the room of Robert Malet, lord of Eye in Suffolk, then recently slain in rebellion.^ It was Aubrey de Vere, the third after the Conquest of England, who became the first Earl of Oxford. But his elevation to the dignity of a comte was originally the result of his marriage, and this is one of the circumstances that have confused the old accounts of this Earldom ; for Dugdale erroneously attributed that marriage to his grandfather, ' This important contribution to the erroneous interpT-etation of the statements rif;ht understandins? of the Domesday of the survey, — the fact being that the .Survey,wasfii-st pointed out by Mr. Baker, tenure of the Earl was then spoken of in in the " History of Northamptonshire,' the past tense, because his lands were vol. i. p. 561. The Domesday student actually forfeited. In his "History of will do well to note it in his copy of the Warwickshire," Dugdale has uniformly Introduction by Sir Henry Ellis, who misrepresented this Earl as progenitor of was noi aware of it. Mr. Baker further the Earls of Oxford, remarks that Sir William Dugdale (B.-»ron- - Simeon Dunelm. edit. Twysden, col. age, i. 188) was incorrect in his suppo- 20o. Rition that this Earl Alberic was an ^ Robert Malet was slain at the battle Englishman, having misunderstood the of Tenerchebrai, fighting on the side of entrj' under Wiltshire which led to that Duke Robert Courtehose, against his conclusion ; and that the historian of father King Henrv, on the 'llxh Sept. Lcicestershii-e has adopted the same 1106.