Horace Vere, 1st Baron Vere of Tilbury

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Horace Vere, 1st Baron Vere, 1629

Horace Vere, 1st Baron Vere of Tilbury (also Horatio de Vere , * 1565 in Crepping Hall, Wakes Colne, Essex , † May 2, 1635 in Whitehall , Westminster (London) ) was an English military leader in the Eighty Years War and the Thirty Years War .

Life

He was the fourth and youngest son of the Hon. Geoffrey Vere and Elizabeth Hardkyn. His father was the youngest son of the 15th Earl of Oxford .

In 1590 he went to the Spanish Netherlands and joined an English infantry company there. The English troops operated there under the command of his brother Sir Francis Vere (1560-1609) as part of the Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604) in alliance with the United Provinces of the Netherlands against the Spanish . He was wounded in a raid on Steenwerck on July 5, 1592 and in June 1594 he was given command of his own company during the siege of Groningen . In 1596 he took part in the expedition to conquer Cádiz under Lord Essex and was promoted to Knight Bachelor on June 22, 1596 in recognition of his bravery . In 1597 he took part in the autumn campaign of Moritz von Orange , in the course of which the cities Rheinberg , Moers , Groenlo , Bredevoort , Enschede , Oldenzaal and Lingen were conquered. In 1599 he was promoted to the rank of colonel . In 1600 he fought in the Battle of Nieuwpoort . On January 7, 1602, he was wounded during the siege of Ostend by the Spaniards while repelling a Spanish assault. In April 1603 his brother Sir Francis Vere sent him to England to inform the new King James I about the war situation. When Sir Francis Vere retired in 1604, Sir Horace Vere gradually took over his command of the English troops in the Netherlands. In July and August 1604 he stood out during the siege of Sluis when he thwarted attempts at relief by the Spaniards.

When England withdrew from the war with Spain on August 28, 1604 with the peace treaty of London , Sir Horace Vere entered Dutch services and fought in the Battle of Mülheim in 1805 . In the following years he returned to England, where he married Mary Tracy, daughter of Sir John Tracy, in November 1607 at Hailey Abbey in Toddington, Gloucestershire . On April 12, 1609, the Spanish and Dutch signed an armistice in Antwerp . After his brother Sir Francis Vere had died on 28 August 1609 he took over the office of the British governor of the city of Brielle in Holland as "Cautionary Towns" Dutch as a deposit to secure war debts to England, as well as Vlissingen and Fort Rammekens nor remained occupied by an English garrison until 1616. In 1610 he took part in the siege of Jülich as part of the Jülich-Klevian succession dispute . In 1618 he supported Moritz of Orange against his rival Johan van Oldenbarnevelt and helped to disband the troops raised by the latter. In the same year Mortz of Orange installed him as the Dutch governor of Utrecht .

When a Catholic invasion of the Electoral Palatinate under the Protestant Elector Frederick V of the Palatinate , son-in-law of King James I of England, emerged in the Thirty Years War in 1620 ( Bohemian-Palatinate War ), a mercenary army was set up in England to support Frederick V. set up. At the suggestion of the Palatine ambassador Christoph von Dohna , Sir Horace Vere was appointed captain general of these troops. The army embarked in July 1620 from Gravesend for the Netherlands, from there to march on to Germany. Sir Horace Vere intended to unite with the main Protestant army under Margrave Joachim Ernst von Ansbach near Mannheim . He marched along the right bank of the Rhine to the area around Koblenz and then made a detour via the Taunus before crossing the Main near Frankfurt . He bypassed a Catholic army under Ambrosio Spinola that tried unsuccessfully to cut off his path. He finally united with the main Protestant army in Worms . Over the winter of 1620/21, the Protestant army was divided into winter quarters. The English divided themselves into the three most important city fortresses of the Palatinate: Mannheim, Heidelberg and Frankenthal . In April 1621, the Protestant Union dissolved, removing the prospect of a return of the Protestant allies. While the Eighty Years War flared up again in the Netherlands, things remained relatively calm in the Palatinate in the following year. In May 1622 Friedrich von der Pfalz reached Mannheim, whose troops under Mansfeld had briefly stopped a Catholic army under Tilly in the battle of Mingolsheim . In the course of the summer, however, the situation became precarious. Tilly received Spanish reinforcements under Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba and defeated the two Protestant armies of Margrave Georg Friedrich von Baden-Durlach and Christian von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel who came to the rescue on May 6, 1622 at Wimpfen and on June 20, 1622 in the one at Höchst . Friedrich von der Pfalz then dismissed his military leader Mansfeld and fled the country. The English garrisons in Mannheim, Heidelberg and Frankenthal were shortly afterwards surrounded by Catholic troops. After Heidelberg had been stormed on September 19, 1622, the siege of Mannheim, commanded by Sir Horace Vere, began. With his four hundred garrison, he withstood the besiegers for eleven weeks. After he had been pushed back into the citadel and there was no prospect of relief, he finally negotiated the honorable surrender on November 5, 1622 and in return received safe conduct with his men and weapons to The Hague . The English defenders in Frankenthal held out even longer and only withdrew on April 14, 1623 at the direct order of their king. On his return to England Sir Horace Vere was honored for his brave achievements and on February 16, 1623 appointed for life Master-General of the Ordnance and on July 20, 1624 was admitted to the royal council of war.

After King James I died in 1625, the new English King Charles I resumed the war against Spain in the Anglo-Spanish War (1625–1630) . Sir Horace Vere then went to The Hague with an English troop contingent in the Netherlands to support Friedrich Heinrich von Oranien , the successor to Moritz von Oranien, who died in April 1625, in relieving Breda, which was besieged by the Spaniards under Ambrosio Spinola . On May 13th, 1625 he led a relief attack to Breda and was able to take some field fortifications of the Spanish besiegers after violent fighting , but suffered so heavy losses in the following Spanish counterattack that he had to withdraw with the remaining men. On his return to England, King Charles I elevated him to Baron Vere , of Tilbury , hereditary nobility on July 24, 1625 . To distinguish it from other baronies Vere , his title is also called Baron Vere of Tilbury .

In 1629 he commanded the English troops at the siege of 's-Hertogenbosch . When England left the war with the Treaty of Madrid in November 1630, Lord Vere returned to the service of the Netherlands. After taking part in the siege and conquest of Maastricht in the summer of 1632 , he finally returned to England.

After all of his brothers died childless, he merged the family's estates in Essex . When he met the English ambassador to The Hague, Sir Harry Vane (1589–1655), for dinner on May 2, 1635 in Whitehall, London, he suffered an apoplexy and died of it within two hours. He was buried with military honors on May 8, 1635 in Westminster Abbey , in the same tomb as his brother Sir Francis Vere. Since he left no sons, his title of nobility expired with his death.

progeny

From his marriage to Mary Tracy he had five daughters:

  • Hon. Elizabeth de Vere (around 1608–1683) ⚭ John Holles, 2nd Earl of Clare ;
  • Hon. Mary de Vere (1608–1669), ⚭ (1) Sir Roger Townshend, 1st Baronet, ⚭ (2) Mildmay Fane, 2nd Earl of Westmorland ;
  • Hon. Catharine de Vere (around 1613–1648), ⚭ (1) Oliver St. John, ⚭ (2) John Poulett, 2nd Baron Poulett ;
  • Hon. Anne de Vere (1618–1665) ⚭ Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron ;
  • Hon. Dorothy de Vere (* around 1620) ⚭ John Wolstenholme.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 2, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 92.
predecessor Office successor
New title created Baron Vere (of Tilbury)
1525-1535 		Title expired
personal data
SURNAME Vere, Horace, 1st Baron Vere of Tilbury
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vere, Horace; De Vere, Horatio; Vere of Tilbury, Horace Vere, 1st Baron
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English military leader
DATE OF BIRTH 1565
PLACE OF BIRTH Crepping Hall, Wakes Colne, Essex
DATE OF DEATH May 2, 1635
Place of death Whitehall , Westminster (London)