De Vere married Lord Burleigh's daughter, and high hopes were placed on him as a courtier and patron, but they were dissipated by his capricious and quarrelsome temperament. His most famous quarrel ws with Sidney, whom, according to Greville, he had addressed as "puppy" in a dispute at the tennis court in 1579.

One of the 15 or so surviving poems attributed to him is entitled Love compared to a tennis playe. He is sometimes suggested as the real author of Shakespeare's works.