SCHOMBERG, Frederick Herman (1615-90)

Born and raised in the Rhine Palatinate at the heart of international Calvinist circles, Frederick Herman von Schönberg, despite his German birth, had strong links to England through his parents. His father, Hans Meinhard von Schönberg, Frederick V’s ambassador to the English court, had helped to arrange the marriage between James I’s daughter, Elizabeth, and the Elector Palatine. After an education at some of the leading Calvinist academies he began his long and illustrious military career. He quickly distinguished himself in battle and went on to become one of the foremost military leaders of Europe.

After 1648 he joined the French Army and adapted his German name to Schomberg, by which he became, and still is, usually known. On behalf of France and Louis XIV’s expansionist policies he commanded Portuguese and former Cromwellian troops against Spain in 1663-8, and English troops in preparation for an invasion of Zealand in 1673. CSP Dom. 1673, pp. 431, 433, 442-3, 448, 454, 459, 476; Kazner, ii. 44-57, 85-86. After the failure of this venture he drew up a memorial for Charles II on the state of the English army, which aroused the ire of the nascent country party in England, concerned by the militarization of the state and what they saw as the growth of French-style ‘arbitrary government’. Kazner, ii. 44-84; CSP Dom. 1673-5, pp. 104, 131. Gilbert Burnet, later bishop of Salisbury, commented on this episode that ‘at any other time of his [Schomberg’s] life he would have been very acceptable to the English. But now he was looked on as one sent over from France to bring our army under a French discipline; and so he was hated by the nation, and not much loved by the court’. Burnet, i. 345.

Schomberg returned to the French army but at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 he left his adopted country and went on to serve Protestant princes: first the Elector of Brandenburg as general-in-chief of his army from 1687 and then William of Orange as adviser and second in command (after William himself) in the expedition to England. He was with the invasion fleet that landed at Torbay on 5 Nov. 1688 and led the Dutch infantry in its march to London. CSP Dom. 1688-9, pp. 225, 244-5; Luttrell, i. 467.

After William of Orange had been proclaimed king by Parliament in February 1689 he set about further rewarding Schomberg and enlisting his future services. On 4 Apr. Schomberg and his youngest son, Charles Schomberg, later 2nd duke of Schomberg, were naturalized as English subjects. Hug. Soc. 4to. ser. xviii. 215. A month later he was given an English dukedom. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 534-5. Apparently, he was originally going to take the historic title of Albemarle for his dukedom, until he was informed that John Granville, earl of Bath, had a claim to it, whereupon Schomberg, in order ‘to avoid doing prejudice to any other gentleman in the like kind as he might perhaps unknowingly do, being a foreigner’, desisted and merely made use of his own name for his dukedom. Surr. Hist. Cent. 371/14/A/8b.

Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, later suggested that it was actually John Churchill, Baron Churchill (later duke of Marlborough), who truly wielded influence over the army and not the aged French marshal. ‘That ever renowned and brave gentleman the marechal of Schomberg’, Ailesbury wrote, ‘was nominally general, and that was all’. Ailesbury continued that Schomberg himself confided to him that, ‘My Lord Churchill proposes all, [and], I am sent for as to say the general consents’. Ailesbury Mems. 244-5; J. Childs, British Army of William III, 24-25.

Schomberg was inactive in the House of Lords, largely because of his military commitments elsewhere. He first sat in the House on 7 June 1689 and attended for a little over a month, until the military situation in Ireland compelled him to prepare for a long campaign there. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 545. Narcissus Luttrell^‡ reported that in late June Schomberg was made chief commander (‘generalissimo’) of the king’s forces in Ireland and that he began to make preparations for the expedition from about that time. Ibid. 541, 551. On 16 July 1689 Schomberg sat in the Lords for the last time and assigned his proxy to Ralph Montagu, earl (later duke) of Montagu, that same day. Montagu apparently used this proxy, for in a division list for 30 July, drawn up by Ailesbury, Schomberg is recorded as voting by proxy against the motion to adhere to the House’s controversial amendments to the bill to reverse the judgments against Titus Oates. On 16 July Schomberg also had a final audience with the Commons at which he thanked its Members for the ‘gift’ (£100,000) voted to him on 25 April. Trustees (two from the Lords and two from the Commons) were to be appointed to find a way of using this grant to purchase landed property for the duke. CJ, x. 223-4; LJ, xiv. 282; Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 559. The financial exigencies of the war meant that the £100,000 never materialized; Schomberg’s successors had to be satisfied with an annual pension of £4,000 intended as part payment of the promised sum. CTB, x. 473.

Schomberg and his troops disembarked in Ireland on 13 Aug. 1689. The campaign quickly ground to a standstill. Schomberg, with inadequate supplies and diseased troops (or so his apologists argued) declined to give battle. Commentators, including perhaps William III himself, criticized him for his caution. Kazner, ii. 329-41. On 1 July 1690 Schomberg and the army, joined by the recently arrived William III, forced a bloody advance across the River Boyne in which Schomberg was killed. He was buried at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin on 19 July, after the city had surrendered to William III.

Considering his short time on English soil and as an English subject, Schomberg made a strong impact on English elite society. His international military reputation preceded him and for the short months he remained in England he was feted by such opposing figures as Burnet and Ailesbury. Ailesbury characterized him in 1689 as ‘now eighty years of age, tall and proper, of a most affable behaviour, and as fine a courtier as he was a soldier.’ Ailesbury Mems. 245. Burnet, praising with faint damns (and with national aspersions), described Schomberg as,

a calm man, of great application and conduct (beyond what was expected by those who knew him on other occasions: for he was too much a German in the liberties he allowed himself in entertainments; but when he commanded armies, he kept himself to better rules). He thought much better than he spoke. He was a man of true judgment, of great probity, and of an humble and obliging temper. Burnet, i. 345.

By the provisions of the special remainder in his patent of creation, the duke’s youngest son, Charles, succeeded to the English dukedom.