Marshal Schomberg (1615-1690), 'The Ablest Soldier of His Age'

Frederick Herman von Schomberg was born into a prominent noble family in the Palatinate in 1615. He was a truly international figure: his father negotiated the marriage of Britain's Princess Royal (James I's daughter, Elizabeth) to the Elector Palatine of the Rhine. Having an English mother and a German father, he would go on to marry a French Huguenot lady, and fight in the armies of more than six nations. His career spans the mercenary system of the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) through to the f