fine on the Earl for illegally bringing together more than the allowed number of retainers to welcome the king is likely apocryphal. Last years On the accession of King Henry VIII, Oxford continued in high favour, and officiated as Lord Great Chamberlain at the coronation. He resided at Wivenhoe and Castle Hedingham in Essex, and added to the 12th-century keep of the latter and constructed a new great hall and several towers. His jousting helm is in the Bargello in Florence. According to Gunn, he 'kept an outstanding chapel choir', and commissioned Caxton's edition of The Four Sons of Aymon in 1489. Oxford also kept a playing company whose recorded performances span the years 1492–1499. Oxford died on 10 March 1513 at Castle Hedingham and was buried on 24 April at Colne Priory. He had no issue by either of his two marriages, and was succeeded as Earl by his nephew, John de Vere, 14th Earl of Oxford, the second but only surviving son of Sir George Vere, third son of the 12th Earl, and his wife, Margaret Stafford, the daughter and heir of Sir William Stafford of Bishops Frome, Hereford. Marriages and family Oxford married firstly, Margaret Neville, the daughter of Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, by Alice, the daughter of Thomas Montagu, 4th Earl of Salisbury. Oxford's first wife was the sister of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, the Kingmaker, making Oxford the uncle of Isabel Neville, Duchess of Clarence as the wife of George Plantagenet, and Anne Neville, the Duchess of Gloucester and later Queen of England after her husband, Richard, was crowned Richard III. Margaret Neville died between 20 November 1506 and 14 January 1507. Oxford married secondly Elizabeth Scrope, the widow of his colleague William, 2nd Viscount Beaumont, and daughter and coheir of Sir Richard Scrope of Bentley, the second son of Henry Scrope, 4th Baron Scrope of Bolton, by Eleanor, the daughter of Norman Washbourne of Wichenford. They had no children. Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford, died in 1537. She mainly lived at Wivenhoe in Essex when she was not at court, and was buried there. She and her sister Mary, Lady Kingston, were members of the household of Catherine of Aragon and went to the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. They were mourners at the funeral of Jane Seymour. The Countess bequeathed a gold cross containing a relic of