In her eleventh year Agnes rejected the match with Geoffrey and by early 1163 was married to his eldest brother Aubrey de Vere III, 1st Earl of Oxford, as his third wife.
[3] Pope Alexander III ruled in her favor, thus establishing the canon law requirement of consent by females in betrothal and the sacrament of marriage.
As the role of "founder" is generally ascribed to lay patrons and the countess presumably cooperated with her husband in the founding of the house, 18th-century scholars erroneously assumed that the prioress was Earl Aubrey's widow.
Agnes's son Henry appears to have become chancellor of Hereford Cathedral under his uncle, Bishop William de Vere, and later a royal clerk under King John of England.
[6] Little is known of Ralph de Vere except that he may have been the second son (from the order in which he witnessed his father's charters) and died before 1214, when his younger brother Robert succeeded to the earldom on the death of Aubrey IV, 2nd earl.