Horace Vere, 1st Baron Vere of Tilbury

Horace Vere, 1st Baron Vere of Tilbury (1565 – 2 May 1635) was an English army officer who served in the Eighty Years' War and the Thirty Years' War. A brother of Francis Vere, he was sent to the Electoral Palatinate by James VI and I in 1620. He was subsequently elevated to the peerage of England as "Baron Vere of Tilbury", which became extinct after he died without a male heir.

Family Horace Vere, born in 1565, was the fourth son of Geoffrey Vere of Crepping Hall, Essex, a younger son of John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford, and Elizabeth Trussell. His mother was Elizabeth Hardekyn (d. December 1615), daughter of Richard Hardekyn (d. 1558) of Wotton House near Castle Hedingham. He had three brothers, John Vere (c. 1558 – 1624) of Kirby Hall near Castle Hedingham, Sir Francis Vere (born c. 1560), and Robert Vere (b. 1562), 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.

Horace Vere was a first cousin of the court poet and playwright Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550–1604), Lord Great Chamberlain of England under Queen Elizabeth I, and possibly the model for the character of Hamlet's friend, "good Horatio".

Military career Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604) Vere left home in 1590 to join his two elder brothers, Robert and Sir Francis, in the Netherlands, commencing his service in the infantry company of the latter during his tenure of office as sergeant-major-general. He was wounded during the assault by English and Dutch soldiers on the fortress of Steenwijk on 5 July 1592, was recommended by his brother for a company at the siege of Groningen in June 1594, and was knighted for his gallantry at the siege of Cádiz in June 1596.

He commanded three hundred foot at the battle of Nieuwpoort under his brother, after whose retirement from the field he helped Sir John Ogle and Sir Charles Fairfax to rally the English vanguard; and at the Siege of Ostend he took a conspicuous part in the repulse of the Spanish assault on 7 January 1602, being stationed (along with Fairfax) at a vital point in the defenses known as the 'Sandhill,' in command of twelve companies. He was badly hurt in the leg by a splinter. Horace then took to the field under his brother again in the spring of 1602 with Maurice's army, and after Francis was severely wounded in the head during the siege of Grave he then took over as command of English forces there. Early in April 1603 he was dispatched by his brother with a message to the new king.

At Frankenthal, Burroughs did not surrender the place to Verdugo until 14 April 1623, and then only in response to direct orders from home. was mortally wounded in the lines on 18 August a few weeks before the place was finally surrendered. A large number of Englishmen who were afterwards distinguished soldiers served under Vere in the trenches at Den Bosch. Among them were: Thomas Fairfax and Philip Skippon, the future organisers of the New Model Army; Jacob Astley, Thomas Glemham, the future royalist generals; Sir John Borlase, and Henry Hexham, the historian of the Dutch wars. Fairfax, Skippon, and George Monck, particularly, were his pupils in the art of war.

The services of the Veres in the Netherlands were closed by the Capture of Maastricht May–August 1632. Vere commanded a powerful brigade, and posted his headquarters opposite the Brussels Gate. Among those killed during the operations were Vere's kinsman, Robert de Vere, 19th Earl of Oxford, while among the wounded were his nephew, Sir Simon Harcourt, and Sir Thomas Holles. With his death the barony of Vere of Tilbury became extinct. Vere left five daughters, who were his coheirs: son of Sir John St John, 1st Baronet, and Anne Leighton: and, secondly, John Poulett, 2nd Baron Poulett; Anne Vere, who married Sir Thomas Fairfax (afterwards 3rd Baron Fairfax of Cameron); and Dorothy Vere, who married John Wolstenholme, eldest son of Sir John Wolstenholme, bart., of Nostell, Yorkshire. Susana Vere (1619–1623) Died at a young age.

Lady Vere continued to live at Clapton until the death of the widow of Lord Vere's eldest brother, John, when she succeeded to Kirby Hall, where she died on Christmas Eve 1670, aged 90. For a short while in the spring of 1645, after the death of the Countess of Dorset, the king's children, Elizabeth and Henry, Duke of Gloucester, were entrusted to her care. She was much in Parliament's favour; but (despite the handsome allowance) she transferred it to the Earl and Countess of Northumberland.