He was a sergeant major-general of English and Scottish troops in 1589, a position he retained during fifteen campaigns fighting the Spanish, with almost unbroken success - most notably at the Battle of Nieuwpoort.

He enjoyed excellent relations with the Dutch under Maurice of Nassau, working in close co-operation with them to help secure the country for the cause of independence.

1565), and a sister, Frances Vere (born 1567), who married, as his second wife, the colonial adventurer and author Sir Robert Harcourt (1574/5–1631), of Nuneham on 20 March 1598.

[2] Vere spent a great deal of time visiting his friend, Sir Julius Caesar in Mitcham in Surrey, on the road from London to Nonsuch Palace.

[4] After this he was then with the largely English garrison of Bergen op Zoom, which delivered itself from the Spanish besiegers led by the Duke of Parma by its own good fighting.

[3] In the next year Sir Francis became sergeant major-general of the English and Scottish troops in the Low Countries, and soon afterwards the chief command devolved upon him.

After assisting in taking Breda he then retook the cities of Zutphen and Deventer, these having been lost five years earlier due to English treachery by Rowland York and William Stanley respectively.

[5] Vere garnered more rewards and respect from Maurice and the Dutch with his decisive actions in the defeat of Parma, this time during the Siege of Knodsenburg outside Nijmegen in July 1591.

At the Siege of Steenwijk in the summer of 1592 Vere lead a force into a breach of the city's wall after a mine has blown - although he along with his brother Horace, Sir Robert Sidney, and a few of their captains were wounded, along with 152 of their men during the assault, the attack was successful and the Spanish surrendered the town.

[8] The following year he was back in the Low Countries and in January 1597 he made an important contribution to the victory of Turnhout, a rare pitched battle against the Spanish 'Tercios'.

Mendoza retreated and the Spanish army then found itself in chaos: mutinies took effect and as a result further operations by them were suspended for a number of years.

[10] The culminating point of Vere's career came the following year, when on the advice of Oldenbarnevelt, the States General decided to carry the war into the enemy's country.

Once the waters had subsided Vere ordered a counter attack which drove what was left of the Spanish assailants away taking great plunder in the process.

[12] Vere returned to the Low Countries with more troops in 1602 and with Maurice laid siege to the Spanish garrison at Grave but before that place surrendered he was injured under the right eye.

[3] He died 28 August 1609—soon after the signing of the Twelve Years' Truce which in practice recognized the independence of the United Provinces—and was buried in Westminster Abbey in the chapel of St John the Evangelist.

[13] Francis has a large monument of alabaster and black marble showing him lying on a carved rush mattress in civilian dress under a slab on which is laid out his suit of armour.

The Latin inscription can be translated: To Francis Vere, Knight, son of Geoffrey and nephew of John earl of Oxford, governor of Brill and Portsmouth, chief leader of the English forces in Belgium,[15] died 28 August 1609, in the 54th year (sic) of his age.