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From: William Addams Reitwiesner <>
Subject: Re: Duke fo SCHOMBERG
Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 02:26:55 GMT


David Collyer <> wrote:
>Friends,
>This may be getting a little late for Gen-Medieval. But have recently
>learned of a forebear who is mentioned in the Will of the 1st Duke of
>Schomberg who lived during the 1600s.
>
>I was wondering whether anyone here might be able to tell me the name of
>this duke, and perhaps provide an outline of his life. We are particularly
>interested in his whereabouts at various times, as the forebear - David (or
>Jacob) Castris - was reputedly a French Huguenot.

He was Friedrich Hermann von Schoenberg (or Frederic Herman de
Schomberg), born at Heidelberg on 6 Dec. 1615, and was said to have been
the ablest soldier of his day. He bounced back and forth among the
armies of various countries, Sweden, France, Portugal, France again (when
he was made a Marshal of France), Portugal again, and Brandenburg. He
was second in command of the army William of Orange used to invade
England in 1688, and was created Duke of Schomberg in 1689. He was slain
at the battle of the Boyne on 1 July 1690. See, for example, the
*Dictionary of National Biography*.

Schomberg appears to at least have been sympathetic to the Protestant
cause -- he left the French service for good at the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes (1685).

William Addams Reitwiesner

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