THE DESCENT OF THE KAIiEDOM OF (>XF()l;n. '21

Such were the circumstances umler f]i the dignity of comte first accrued to Aul^rey de Vcre. His apparent apathy in rehnquishing it is expUaincd by ^Yhat was going on at the time in his own country. He had become one of tlic most active partisans of the empress ][atihha in lier chaim to the Enghsh crown : and had received from her the promise of an Enghsh earhlom. By a charter made after Milo of Gloucester had been created earl of Hereford at Oxford on the 2jth July, 1141, and before the siege of Winchester in the following month, and which, from its being dated at Oxford, (though without date of the year) was probably contemporaneous with the former event, Matilda granted to him all the land of William de Abrincis, together Avith all the inheritance he claimed on the part of his wife, as the heiress of William of Arques ; also the town and castle of Colchester, so soon as it should be in her power to deliver it : and further, the reversion of the Earldom of Cambridgeshire and the third penny thereof, as an Earl ought to have, provided the king of Scots had it not ; but, in that case, the said Aubi-ey was to have the choice of four earldoms, namely, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, and Dorsetshire, according to the decision of her brother the earl of Gloucester, earl Geoffrey (the earl of Essex), and earl Gilbert (the earl of Pembroke). The political influence of earl Aubrey is further shown by the fact, that at the same time the empress gave baronies to his brothers Geoffrey and Kobert, and promised the chan- cellorship of England to his brother William de Vera. King Henry the Second, when he came to the throne in the year 1155, though he preferred Becket for chancellor, fulfilled the agreement made for an earldom with Aubrey de Verc. The earldom given him was that of Oxford, of which he was confirmed Earl by a grant of the third penny of the pleas of the county.^

• The charter of the creation was trans- feodo et hereditate tertium denarium de

cribed by Selden, from the original which placifis comitatiis Oxenfordscyrc ut sit he had seen among the evidences of the inde Comes. Quai'e volo et firmiter praj- Earls of Oxford, as follows : — cipio quod ipse et heredcs sui habeant H. Rex Angliae et Dux Normanniae et inde coinitatum suum ita libere et quiete Aquitaniae et Comes Andagavise, archi- ethonorifice sicut aliquis Comitum Anglite episcopis, episcopis, abbatibus, comitibus, liberius et quietius et honorificentius liabet. baronibus, justiciariis, vicecomitibus, Testibus T. caneellario, Hugone coniite de ministris, et omnibus fidelibus suis totius Norff ', llogcro comitc de Clare, ccmiite Franciae et Anglirc salutem. Sciatis mo Patricio, llicardo filio Gislcbcrti, Henrico dedisse et concessisse Coraiti Alberico in de Esse.x constabulario, Richardo do