Across the Channel, exiled Catholics monitored the young hothead. In a list of ‘Names and Faith of English Nobles’ dated 18 December 1567, Oxford appears fifth, following the Duke of Norfolk and the earls of Sussex, Leicester, and Rutland, all perceived as ‘Well affected towards Catholics’. Similar lists over the next thirty years (1571, 1592, 1603) would routinely (but vainly) pin Catholic hopes on Oxford.

Also about this time the adventurer-poet Thomas Churchyard seems to have become acquainted with Oxford, whom he names by title in his 1602 A True Discourse Historical (pp. 10–11):

Cecil rather than Oxford – still a minor – presumably authorized Churchyard's travels.

The indenture signed by the 16th Earl before his death required that his son, on his eighteenth birthday, which would occur on 12 April 1568, must choose for wife either Elizabeth or Mary Hastings. The day came and went with no known interest on either side. Oxford remained at Cecil House, joined by twelve-year-old Edward, Lord Zouch, whose wardship would last until 1577.

Countess Margery died on 2 December 1568, and was buried at Earls Colne, alongside her first husband. Presumably Oxford and Lady Mary attended their mother's funeral, along with Margery's second husband, Charles Tyrrell, who subsequently died at Kingston-upon-Thames, where his burial on 7 March 1570 is recorded in the parish register:

Related entries appear in churchwardens’ accounts for the same year:

In his will, probated on 4 May, Charles bequeathed ‘unto the Earl of Oxford one great horse that his lordship gave me’. Since Oxford had given Charles a horse, and Charles returned it, the two must have been on a cordial footing. Charles also remembered Lady Mary: