[1] His father was John Henry Vaughan, a Colonial Office lawyer who would serve as Chief Justice of Fiji between 1945 and 1949.
[1] In 1958, while a fellow at Corpus Christi, Vaughan published his study of Matthew Paris which became the standard work on the medieval chronicler.
Between 1962 and 1976 he wrote his most important work, a four volume history of the late medieval Dukes of Burgundy.
[1] C. A. J. Armstrong described it as "a major achievement in European historiography, … probably no one has produced an equally comprehensive survey of Burgundian power between 1364 and 1477.
In 2005, he wrote, with his daughter, Nancy Vaughan Jennings, the standard work on the Stone-curlew.