Sir Aubrey de Vere, 2nd Baronet

Sir Aubrey (Hunt) de Vere, 2nd Baronet (28 August 1788 – 5 July 1846)[3][2] was an Anglo-Irish poet and landowner.

Sir
Aubrey de Vere
Bt
Personal details
Born(1788-08-28)August 28, 1788
DiedJuly 5, 1846(1846-07-05) (aged 57)
SpouseMary Spring de Vere (née Rice)
Children
Parents
Military service
AllegianceKingdom of Great Britain
Branch/serviceBritish Army
Years of service1793
RankCaptain
CommandsUnnamed volunteer regiment
Battles/warsFrench Revolutionary Wars[1][2][note 1]

De Vere was the son of Sir Vere Hunt, 1st Baronet and Eleanor Pery, daughter of William Pery, 1st Baron Glentworth and his first wife Jane Walcott.[4][5] He was educated at Harrow School, where he was a childhood friend of Lord Byron, and Trinity College, Dublin. He married Mary Spring Rice, the daughter of Stephen Edward Rice and Catherine Spring, and sister of Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon, in 1807.[5] He succeeded to his father's title in 1818. He and Mary had five sons, including the third and fourth baronets, Aubrey and Stephen de Vere, and the poet Aubrey Thomas de Vere, and three daughters, two of whom died in infancy.[3][2]

The Hunt/de Vere family estate for 300 years (1657–1957), including the period of the de Vere Baronetcy of Curragh, is the present-day Curraghchase Forest Park, in County Limerick. De Vere spent most of his life on the estate and was closely involved in its management. He suffered much trouble from his ownership of the island of Lundy, which his father, who was a notoriously poor businessman, had unwisely purchased in 1802, and which became a heavy drain on the family's finances. Sir Vere was never able to find a purchaser for Lundy, and it took his son until 1834[6] (or 1830)[3] to dispose of it.

Sir Aubrey stood for election in the 1820 General Election and came in third with 2921 votes.[7]

He changed his surname from Hunt to de Vere on 15 March 1832, in reference to his Earl of Oxford ancestors, dating back to Aubrey de Vere I, a tenant-in-chief in England of William the Conqueror in 1086.[8][2] He served as High Sheriff of County Limerick in 1811.

Sir Aubrey was a poet. Wordsworth called his sonnets the most perfect of the age. These and his drama, Mary Tudor: An Historical Drama, were published by his son the poet Mr. Aubrey Thomas de Vere in 1875 and 1884.

Works

De Vere produced numerous works over his lifetime. The most notable are: Ode to the Duchess of Angouleme (1815), Julian the Apostate: A Dramatic Poem (1822), The Duke of Mercia: An Historical Drama [with] The Lamentation of Ireland, and Other Poems (1823), A Song of Faith: Devout Exercises and Sonnets and his most famous work, Mary Tudor: An Historical Drama.[9]

References
  1. De Vere, Aubrey (1897). Recollections of Aubrey De Vere (3rd ed.). London: Edward Arnold. pp. 1, 5 – via Internet Archive. During the war he raised two regiments consisting of the sons of farmers, his own tenants and those of his neighbours, and bestowed a captain's commission on his only son, then a boy of five.
  2. Pijpers, T.A. (1941). Aubrey De Vere As A Man Of Letters (Thesis). Radboud University. hdl:2066/107135. p. 2.
  3. Burke, Bernard (1912). Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles (ed.). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland (New ed.). London: Harrison & Sons. p. 335.
  4. Burke, John (1833). A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire. Vol. 1 (4th ed.). London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley. p. 352. Archived from the original on 20 May 2022.
  5. Burke, Bernard (1912). Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles (ed.). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland (New ed.). London: Harrison & Sons. p. 335.
  6. Hayward, Philip; Khamis, Susie (2015). "FLEETING AND PARTIAL AUTONOMY: A historical account of quasi-micronational initiatives on Lundy Island and their contemporary reconfiguration on MicroWiki" (PDF). Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures. 9 (1): 72. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 May 2022 – via Google Scholar.
  7. "Co. Limerick | History of Parliament Online 1820-32". History of Parliament. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
  8. Burke, John (1833). A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire. Vol. 1 (4th ed.). London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley. pp. 351–352. Archived from the original on 20 May 2022.
  9. ‘The Poems of the De Veres’, Dublin University Magazine, XXI, 122 (Feb. 1843), pp.190-204.
  1. See his father's article for further clarification.
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