Sir Frederick's first son, Walter Vane, was educated at Eton from 1805 to 1807 and thereafter at Charterhouse between 1808 and 1809 when the school was based at Smithfield, London. Walter was enlisted as a lieutenant in the 1st Foot Guards on 11 September 1811 and served in the Peninsular Wars fought between Napoleon and the allied forces of Britain, Spain and Portugal to gain control of the Iberian Peninsula. He fought between March 1813 and April 1814 at the battles of Bidassoa, Nivelle, Nive and Adour. Walter Vane attained the rank of captain on 15 March 1814. At the time of Napoleon's capitulation in 1814, shortly before Napoleon's first exile to Elba, Walter Vane was in the camp of the Grenadier Guards at Bayonne. The French General refused to believe that Napoleon could have conceded and the result is best summed up by Walter's nephew: