page_title: Francis Vere
section_title: Westminster Abbey
hierarchical_section_title: Francis Vere / Westminster Abbey
caption_attribution_description: English: Sir Francis Vere's tomb in Westminster Abbey, from Old England&#160;: a pictorial museum of regal, ecclesiastical, municipal, baronial, and popular antiquities (1860?), Charles Knight 1791-1873. After page 286
context_page_description: Sir Francis Vere was an English soldier, famed for his successful military career in the Low Countries.
context_section_description: He died 28 August 1609—soon after the signing of the Twelve Years' Truce which in practice recognized the independence of the United Provinces—and was buried in Westminster Abbey in the chapel of St John the Evangelist. Francis has a large monument of alabaster and black marble showing him lying on a carved rush mattress in civilian dress under a slab on which is laid out his suit of armour. The slab is supported on the shoulders of four life-sized knights in armour who kneel at each corner. The monument seems to have been inspired by that of Count Engelbert II of Nassau-Dillenburg in the church at Breda. The Latin inscription can be translated:
  To Francis Vere, Knight, son of Geoffrey and nephew of John earl of Oxford, governor of Brill and Portsmouth, chief leader of the English forces in Belgium, died 28 August 1609, in the 54th year (sic) of his age. Elizabeth, his wife, in great sadness and sobbing with tears, placed this supreme monument to conjugal faith and love.
caption: Sir Francis Vere's tomb in Westminster Abbey, circa 1860
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