Like many of his family members, he was involved in the Dutch Revolt and in the Uskok War (1617) against the Habsburgs and Catholic Spain, where he received the rank of Marshal. Especially in the campaigns of 1629 and 1632 as 's-Hertogenbosch and Maastricht were captured, he distinguished himself and became governor of Heusden and Sluis. During attempted attack on Antwerp, he was devastatingly defeated in the Battle of Kallo (1638), in which his only son, 17-year-old Maurice, was killed. At the siege of Gennep in 1641, he suffered a serious abdominal wound, in consequence of which he died a year later. He was buried in Heusden.