his garrison still further augmented by recruits from England. The scions of distinguished families in Scotland and France, as well as from Holland and England, flocked to the place to learn the art of war under a veteran so distinguished. By some of these young ‘popinjays,’ who came to Ostend not for discipline but for diversion, Vere was considerably annoyed, and he took no pains to conceal how much he deprecated their presence. Conspicuous among this class was the Earl of Northumberland, who left the place in high dudgeon at the ‘discommodities of the place’ and the ‘little observance’ done him. The severity of Vere's discipline may have had something to do with the dwindling of the garrison, reduced by December to little more than two thousand men. A gale of wind prevented the arrival of any reinforcement, and supplies were running short. Vere realised his weakness when on 4 Dec. the archduke delivered a general assault, which was repulsed with the utmost difficulty. He managed to gain a little time by some sham negotiations with the enemy (see Extremities urging the Lord-general Sir F. Veare to offer the late Anti-parle with the Archduke Albertus, London, 1602, 4to); and happily before the month closed five men-of-war arrived from Zeeland with men and material, which they managed to disembark under a heavy fire. In January 1602 the enemy began preparing for another general assault. By this time the Spaniards had fired nearly two hundred thousand shots into the town, and scarcely a whole house was left standing. On the night of 7 Jan. they made a desperate assault upon the breaches at the north-west corner of the town, between the works called Porc-espic (ravelin) and Helmund (bastion), near which point Vere himself conducted the operations. Since the new year, however, Vere had considerably strengthened his position, and after several hours' fighting the enemy were repulsed at all points, the opening of the western sluice by Vere's orders at a critical moment of the retreat washing many of the besiegers into the sea. This triumphant defence was followed by a lull in the attack, and on 7 March Vere was withdrawn from Ostend (which held out two years and a half longer) in order to take up a command in the field. Before doing so, however, he went over to England to obtain permission from the queen to levy more recruits for service in the Netherlands. While about the court he was challenged to a duel by the Earl of Northumberland, who had felt himself personally slighted by Vere at Ostend, but he declined to meet the earl while he himself was engaged upon public service (cf. Gent. Mag. 1854, vol. i.; Addit. MS. 25247, ff. 308–11).
Returning without delay to The Hague, Vere found himself at the head of a splendid force of eight thousand Englishmen in the pay of the states. On 7 July siege was laid by Vere and Prince Maurice to the small town of Grave, near Nymeguen. There, in the following month while inspecting the trenches, Sir Francis was struck by a bullet just under the right eye. He lay in a critical condition at Ryswyk for several months. In January 1603 he was active again, and engaged upon an arduous conflict with the States-General, from whom he demanded jurisdiction over his own men, untrammelled by any interference by Dutch magistrates. The Dutch authorities seemed inclined to concede the point to their veteran commander, ‘second only to Maurice in their army;’ but on 21 March Vere was stunned by the news of the death of Queen Elizabeth, which he received through Prince Maurice at Ryswyk. He took measures to have James I proclaimed in Holland, and he was continued by the new king in the governorship of the Brill; but in 1604 James made a treaty of peace with Spain, and in the summer of that year Vere retired from the service of the states, retaining only the honorary command of his regiment of horse, and settled on his property at Tilbury Lodge, near Kirby Hall, the home of his mother and elder brother. In August 1605 he paid a last visit to The Hague, bearing letters from James I to the States-General. He took leave of his old comrade Prince Maurice and of the states in May 1606, and returned to England next month, bearing with him a substantial proof of Dutch regard in the form of a pension of 500l. annually. On 15 June 1606, upon his return to England, he was appointed governor of Portsmouth and the isle of Portsea, in succession to the Earl of Devon. Henceforth his time was passed between Portsmouth and Tilbury Lodge. On 26 Oct. 1607 he married at Mitcham a girl of sixteen, Elizabeth, daughter of John Dent (d. 1595), a citizen of London, by his second wife, Alice (Grant).
Vere spent his unwonted leisure in inditing his straightforward and soldierlike ‘Commentaries,’ or short narratives of ‘the diverse pieces of service wherein he had command.’ These notes were jotted down for private circulation only, but in 1657 they were published at Cambridge as ‘The Commentaries of Sir Francis Vere,’ in small folio, by Dr. William Dillingham [q. v.], who had accidentally lighted upon the manuscript
