While never of consequence in the Tudor court,[1] the 16th Earl's support for Queen Mary was instrumental in her accession to the throne in 1553,[2] though he was given no preferment by her.
[4] Under Mary, Essex men and women suspected of heresy against Catholicism were brought before Oxford to be charged, and thence conveyed to the Bishop of London for examination.
[10] Five more prisoners indentured by the earl that year[11] were released, but continued obstinate in their refusal of Catholic practices, and were re-arrested, condemned, and burnt at Colchester on 2 August 1557: William Bongeour, Helen Ewring, William Munt, his wife Alice Munt, and her daughter, Rose Allen.
[12] He married firstly Dorothy Neville, daughter of Ralph Neville, 4th Earl of Westmorland in Holywell, Shoreditch, London on 3 July 1536,[13] secondly and bigamiously Joan Jockey of Earls Colne at White Colne Church,[14] and thirdly, Margery Golding in Belchamp St Paul on 1 August 1548.
In 1585, when attesting to the legitimacy of Oxford's marriage to Margery Golding, members of his household reported that "'all theise women were shaken off by the same Earle ... before the said lady Dorothie dyed'" on "about 6 January 1548, at a parsonage located a half mile from distant Salisbury.