" Geoffrey V (24 August 1113 – 7 September 1151), called the Handsome, the Fair (French: le Bel) or Plantagenet, was the Count of Anjou, Touraine and Maine by inheritance from 1129, and also Duke of Normandy by his marriage claim, and conquest, from 1144. "

" Geoffrey's marriage to Empress Matilda, daughter of King Henry I of England and Duke of Normandy, led through their son, Henry II, to the 300-year long reign of the Plantagenet dynasty in England. Although it was never his family name or last name, "Plantagenet" was taken for the dynasty from Geoffrey's epithet, long after his death.
Geoffrey was 'of Anjou', his ancestral domain of Anjou in north central France gives rise to the name Angevin, and what modern historians name as the Angevin Empire in the 12th century. "

" Matilda wielded great power. Her honour of Boulogne was centred largely upon London and Colchester, which gave her a strong territorial advantage. She was closely involved in government, for Stephen trusted her political judgment and relied on her support. "

" Matilda of Flanders (French: Mathilde; Dutch: Machteld) (c. 1031 – 2 November 1083) was Queen of England and Duchess of Normandy by marriage to William the Conqueror, and regent of Normandy during his absences from the duchy. She was the mother of ten children who survived to adulthood, including two kings, William II and Henry I. "

" Soon after his father's death in 1141, Aubrey III de Vere was recruited by Empress Matilda. Aubrey's brother-in-law, Geoffrey de Mandeville first earl of Essex, apparently negotiated the offer of the earldom of Cambridge, with a secondary offer of one of four counties if Cambridgeshire was claimed by her kinsman. Aubrey held no land in Oxfordshire at the time, but his eldest son Aubrey IV was to marry an heiress with manors in that county. "

" The House of de Vere were an English aristocratic family who derived their surname from Ver (department Manche, canton Gavray), in Lower Normandy, France.[2] The family's Norman founder in England, Aubrey (Albericus) de Vere, appears in Domesday Book (1086) as the holder of a large fief in Essex, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire. His son and heir Aubrey II became Lord Great Chamberlain of England, an hereditary office, in 1133. His grandson Aubrey III became Earl of Oxford in the reign of King Stephen, but while his earldom had been granted by the Empress Matilda and eventually recognised by Stephen, it was not until January 1156 that it was formally recognised by Henry II and he began to receive the third penny of justice (one-third of the revenue of the shire court) from Oxfordshire. "