Charles Francis Topham de Vere Beauclerk, also styled Earl of Burford by courtesy, is a British aristocrat and heir to the peerage title of Duke of St Albans.
Beauclerk first came to public attention when he attempted to interfere with a debate in the House of Lords, declaring a Bill which would exclude hereditary peers from the House to be treasonable.
A writer and exponent of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship, after the House of Lords Act 1999, he refuses to be known by his courtesy title, believing it to be worthless insofar as most hereditary peers were removed from parliament (albeit 90 may still be elected to sit in the House of Lords).
