317 



VERE, HORACE, LORD. 



VERGENNE3, COMTE DE. 



813 



himself the rivalry and jealousy of Raleigh and the enmity of 

 Burleigh. In 1GOO he was joined with Count Ernest of Nassau and 

 Count Solmes in the command of the army which the Dutch sent into 

 Flanders ; and to his exertions was principally owiug a great victory 

 obtained over the Spaniards, near Nieuport, on the 5th of July. Sir 

 Francis received two shots in the thigh in this battle ; but he kept 

 the field till his horse fell dead under him, when he was with diffi- 

 culty rescued. The following year, on the Archduke Albert sitting 

 down before Ostend, at the head of an army of 12,000 men, he was 

 appointed by the States general of all their forces in and about that 

 important place, and immediately threw himself into the beleaguered 

 town. Here, with very inadequate resources, he held out for about 

 eight mouths, having succeeded in repelling a general attack of the 

 enemy on the 7th of January 1602 ; and then, on the 7th of March, 

 ho resigned his government to Frederick Dorp, who had been appointed 

 by the States to succeed him. Ostend capitulated at last in 1604, 

 after the siege had lasted more than three years and three months, 

 and had cost the lives, it has been asserted, of above 100,000 men. 

 His defence of Ostend, in the -course of which he had received a wound 

 in the head by the accidental bursting of a cannon, was Vere's last 

 service. He was reappoiuted to the government of the Brill on the 

 accession of King James; and he died in England on the 28th of 

 August 1608. He is styled Governor both of the Brill and of Ports- 

 mouth on his monument in Westminster Abbey, erected by his widow, 

 Elizabeth, second daughter of John Dent, citizen of London. By this 

 lady (who afterwards became the wife of the Hon. Patrick Murray, a 

 son of the Earl of Tullibardine, in Scotland) he had three sons and 

 two daughters, all of whom died before him. His military achieve- 

 ments have been recorded by his own pen in 'The Commentaries of 

 Sir Francis Vere, being divers pieces of service wherein he had 

 command, written by himself in way of Commentary;' which were 

 published, from his original manuscript, iu folio, at Cambridge, in 

 1657, by William Dillingham, D.D. 



VERE, HORACE, or HORATIO, LORD VERE, was the youngest 

 of the three brothers of Sir Francis Vere, and was born at Kirby 

 Hall in Essex, in 1565. He accompanied his brother to Holland in 

 1585, and shared in most of his exploits and enterprises there, as well 

 as in the first expedition to Cadiz, for his valour on which last occa- 

 sion he received the honour of knighthood. He particularly signalised 

 himself both in the battle of Nieuport and in the defence of Ostend. 

 In 1603 he joined the army under Prince Maurice, and in 1604 was 

 greatly instrumental in the reduction of the town of Sluys. In the 

 campaign of the following year, a retreat which he succeeded in 

 effecting, with 4000 men, from the Spanish general Spinola, acquired 

 him much reputation, and extorted the highest praise from Spinola 

 himself. On the death of his brother, he succeeded him both as 

 governor of the Brill, and as general of the English forces in the 

 service of Holland ; but the twelve years' truce between the Dutch 

 and the Spaniards kept him out of the field for the remainder of the 

 time that he held the former of these appointments. The town of 

 Brill being delivered up to the Dutch in 1616, Sir Horace Vere 

 was allowed a pension by the king in consideration of his services. 

 In 1618 he assisted the Prince of Orange in putting down the 

 Arminians, or Remonstrants, at Utrecht, a measure of violence, one 

 of the results of which was the destruction of the grand pensionary 

 Barneveldt, who had been the attached friend of Sir Francis Vere. 

 In 1620, when forces were raised in England for the assistance of the 

 elector palatine, Frederic V., in his attempt to secure the crown of 

 Bohemia, Sir Horace Vere was appointed to the command of them ; 

 and he behaved with his usual spirit in the disastrous contest which 

 ensued, keeping the enemy at bay as long as it was possible, till he 

 was obliged to surrender Mannheim, the last place of strength into 

 which he threw himself, to the Austrian general, Count Tilly, iu 

 January 1623. After his return home, he was, 20th of July 1624, 

 Dominated by King James one of the council of war appointed to 

 manage the business of the palatinate : and immediately after the 

 accession of Charles I. he was, on the 25th of July 1625, raised to 

 the peerage, by the title of Baron Vere, of Tilbury, in the county oi 

 Essex. He was the first peer made by Charles. In March 1629, on 

 the death of the earl of Totness, Lord Vere was made master of the 

 ordnance for life. Still retaining his post of commander-in-chief ol 

 the English forces in the Netherlands, he continued occasionally to 

 visit that country, and to take part in the war : but nothing further 

 that is memorable is related of his military career. The last two 

 years of his life were spent in England, where he died suddenly on 

 the 2nd of May 1635, being struck with apoplexy as he sat at dinner 

 in the house of Sir Henry Vane at Whitehall. Fuller, who knew 

 Lord Vere, describes him, in his ' Worthies,' as having " more meek 

 ness and as much valour as his brother; " and as "so pious, that he 

 first made his peace with God before he went out to war with man.' 

 Sir Francis, he says, was more feared, Sir Horace more loved, bi 

 the soldiers. By his wife Mary, third daughter of Sir John Tracey 

 of Toddington, in the county of Gloucester, who had been previously 

 married to Mr. William Hoby (and who long survived her secouc 

 husband also, dying, in 1671, at the age of ninety), Lord Vere hac 

 five daughters : Anne, married to John Hollis, second earl of Clare 

 Mary, married first to Sir Roger Townshend, father of the firs 

 Viscount Townshend, secondly to Mildmay Fane, earl of Westmore 



and ; Catherine, married to Oliver St. John, Esq., ancestor of Lord 



Bolingbroke ; Anne, married to Thomas, Lord Fairfax ; and Dorothy, 



married to John Wolstenholm, Esq., by whom however she had no 



ssue. In 1642 an octavo volume was published at London, dedicated 



o Lady Vere, entitled ' Elegies, celebrating the happy Memory of Sir 



loratio Vere,' &c. 



VERE'LIUS, OLA'US, a celebrated Swedish antiquary, whose real 

 lame was OLAF WEKL, was born on the 12th of February 1618, in 

 he village of Ragnildstorp, in the diocese of Linkoping. He received 

 iis first education from his father, Nicolaus Werl, who was pastor 

 at Ingatorp. After the completion of his preparatory education in 

 he public school at Linkoping, he went to the university of Dorpat, 

 n Livonia, which was then a Swedish province. After a stay of four 

 ears, he returned to Sweden, and finished his studies at Upsala. In 

 .644 he became private tutor to two young Swedish barons, whom he 

 accompanied in 1648 on a tour through Denmark, Germany, Holland, 

 Switzerland, Italy, and France. At Paris the party stayed a whole 

 year. On his return to Sweden in 1651, Queen Christina appointed 

 lim professor of eloquence in the university of Dorpat, and the year 

 after he received the same office in the university of Upsala, in 

 addition to which he was made quaestor of the university. In 1662 

 le became professor of Swedish antiquities, and in 1066 antiquary to 

 iing Charles XL, and Assessor Antiquititum in the king's privy- 

 iouucil In 1679 he was appointed chief librarian of the library of 

 [Jpsala, which was a kind of sinecure, and was only given to eminent 

 scholars " as a comfort in their old age, after they had achieved Her- 

 ulean labours." Verelius died on the 1st of January 1682. In the 

 Swedish epitaph on his tombstone he is called a real ' Runic stone,' 

 iO express his immense antiquarian knowledge. 



Verelius is the author of numerous works, chiefly on Scandinavian 

 antiquities, of which he 'possessed a most extensive knowledge. His 

 listorical statements must be received with great caution, as he was 

 aiassed by certain opinions respecting the Swedish origin of the Goths, 

 which were then common among the Swedish historians. In addition 

 to this, Verelius was very tenacious in his opinions, however extra- 

 vagant they might be, and of very irritable temperament, as we see 

 ispecially in his polemical writings against his old friend John 

 Scheffer of Strasburg, about the meaning of the name Upsala. But 

 Verelius is nevertheless one of the best writers on the early history 

 and antiquities of Scandinavia. His principal works are : 1, ' Goth- 

 rici et Rolfi, Westrogothiaj Regum, Historia, &c., accedunt nota? 

 Joannis Schefferi, (Argentoratensis,)' Svo, Upsala, 1664. This is the 

 first edition of an old work written in the old Scandinavian language, 

 or, a,3 the editor calls it, the Gothic language. It contains the original 

 text and a Swedish translation, together with a vocabulary in which 

 the meaning of Scandinavian words is explained in Latin. 2, 'Itt 

 Stycke af Konung Olaf Tryggiason's Saga hwilken pa Gammal Gb'tska 

 Beskrifwit hafwa Oddur Munk,' &c., Svo, Upsala, 1665 (i. e. 'A frag- 

 ment of King 0. Tryggiason's Saga, written in old Gothic by Monk 

 Oddur.) 3, 'Herrands och Bosa Saga,' 8vo, Upsala, 1666, with 

 a Swedish translation. 4, ' Manuductio compendiosa ad Runogra- 

 phiam,' &c., fol., Upsala, 1675. This is written in Swedish, and 

 dedicated to the celebrated Axel Oxenstierna, and contains thirty 

 beautiful Runic inscriptions. 5, ' Notae in Epistolam defeneoriam 

 clarissimi viri, J. Schefferi, Argentoratensis, de situ ac vocabulo Upsa- 

 lise,' fol., Upsala, 1681. This work is written with such bitterness and 

 vehemence, that it was prohibited two mouths after its publication. 

 After his death appeared 6, 'Index Linguae veteris Scytho-Scandise 

 sive Gothicse,' &c., edited by Olaus Rudbeck, fol., Upsala, 1691. 7, 

 ' Epitomarum Historise Suio-Gothicaj libri iv., et Gothorum extra 

 patriam gestarum libri ii.,' edited by P. Schenberg, 4to, Stockholm, 

 1730. There are also two orations of Verelius, viz., 8, 'Oratio Panegy- 

 rica de Pace Suio-Germanica, habita Lugduni-Batavorum,' fol., Leyden, 

 1649. 9, ' Memorise illustrissimi Comitis Axelii Oxenstierna Oratio 

 Funebris/ fol., Upsala, 1655. 



(Claudius Arrhenius Ornhielm, ' Vita Olai Verelii,' in the Epitomarum 

 Historice Suio-Gothica Lib. IV., where also a complete list of the works 

 of Verelius is given : Compare Jocher, Allgem. Gelehrlen-Lexic., and 

 Gley, in the Biographic Umverselle.) 



VERGENNES, CHARLES GRAVIER, COMTE DE, the son of a 

 president ' a mortier ' of the parliament of Dijon, was born in that 

 town on the 28th of December 1717. His family had only recently 

 been admitted among the ' noblesse de la robe.' M. de Chavigny, who 

 had been envoy in Spain and England, and whose niece had married a 

 brother of Vergennee, undertook to initiate the young man into the 

 diplomatic career : he took him as attache" to Lisbon iu 1740. 



In 1743 the French court exerted itself to procure the imperial 

 crown for the elector of Bavaria. Chavigny was sent to Frankfurt to 

 manage the electoral diet, and Vergennes accompanied him. After 

 the death of Charles VII., Chavigny returned with his pupil to Lisbon. 

 Here Vergennes found for the first time an opportunity to display his 

 capacity for business. The rival claims of Spain and Portugal to the 

 territory of Monte Video were referred to the arbitration of the court 

 of Versailles. Vergennes is said to have condensed into a memoir of 

 four pages the substance of the voluminous pleadings of the parties. 

 The Marquis d'Argenson was delighted with the abridgment ; and in 

 1750 the young diplomatist was appointed minister to the electoral 

 court of Trier. The meddling occupant of that ecclesiastical princi- 



