Protestant Exiles from France/Book Second - Chapter 1 - Section I
BOOK SECOND.
Chapter 1.
THE THREE DUKES OF SCHOMBERG.
I. Frederick Armand, First Duke of Schomberg.
“Le Maréchal de Schomberg dans l’armée, l’Amiral Duquesne dans la marine, et le Marquis de Ruvigny dans la diplomatic, la Revocation de l’Edit de Nantes (sans parler de ses conséquences génerales) coûta à la France et au Roi ces trois excellents et glorieux serviteurs.” — Guizot.
Frederic Armand de Schomberg was by birth a German Count, a scion of a noble house of the Palatinate. His mother was an English lady, and when he was but a boy, he became a citizen of the world. By his talents he learned to be a good Frenchman, and by his habits he ripened into a grand and unrepining exile, and a model British subject and soldier.
He was born in 1615, being the son of John Mainhardt de Schomberg, Comte de Schomberg, by his wife the Honourable Anne Sutton, daughter of the Right Honourable Edward Sutton, ninth Baron Dudley of Dudley Castle, Worcestershire, and of Theodosia, Lady Dudley, who was a daughter of Sir James Harrington. Count John, Grand-Marshal of the Palatinate of the Rhine, was the negotiator of the marriage of Frederick, the Elector Palatine, with Princess Elizabeth of England, in 1612. “The Letters of George Lord Carew (1615-17),” printed by the Camden Society, prove that our hero’s father, John Mainhardt, Comte de Schomberg, married, in 1615, Anne (daughter of Lord Dudley), who in December of the same year died in childbed, having given birth to Frederic Armand. Lord Carew writes in August 1616, Monsieur Schomberge, husband to my wife [a term of endearment] Anne Dudleye is dead.” Thus Frederic was left an orphan;[1] and thus he became a protegé of the Elector and Electress; he was an infantine member of their short-lived court at Prague. He was conveyed into Holland in the suite of the ex-king and queen of Bohemia.
He thus became a denizen of Holland, where four trustees were appointed for his education. The profession of a soldier would be early suggested to him by his august and chivalrous patron Maurice, Prince of Orange, and by Maurice’s half-brother, Prince Henry Frederick, who was a grandson of the heroic Coligny. Under such protection, and with the remembrance of the wrongs inflicted on his own Prince by the Roman Catholic League, young Schomberg was prepared to fight with his whole heart in the great Protestant confederation.
At the date of his first recorded appearance in arms (the nineteenth year of his age) France was engaged in the Anti-Imperialist cause, in spite of its Protestantism. This was at the battle of Nordlingen, in September 1634, where, however, he was not on the winning side, for the Imperialists gained the day. He had some pleasing experience of the French as comrades in war, which was the basis of his employments as a naturalized Frenchman in after years. He served during the remainder of the thirty years’ war. According to the Biographie Universelle, he was before Dole as a captain in Marshal Ratzau’s regiment. By that marshal he was detached to surprise Nordhausen. He put the advance guard to flight, ran a race with them to one of the gates, pursuers and fugitives reached the goal en masse, and threw themselves pell mell into the town.
Holland continued to be his adopted country. In 1647 he lost his princely benefactor and preceptor in the art of war. Henry Frederick, Prince of Orange, died on the 14th March of that year, aged sixty-three. The war ended in the peace of Westphalia in 1648.
Schomberg was admitted to the intimate friendship and confidence of Prince William the Second. This prince, his predecessor’s only son, was the husband of Princess Mary of England. Her brother Charles, Prince of Wales, came in 1648 or sooner, and made the Hague his headquarters, from which he watched the troubles of his native country. Here Schomberg was introduced to his acquaintance, and became a favourite. The youthful Charles (the year of whose birth was 1630) allowed the good man and gallant soldier to speak freely to him.
The rule of the second Prince William was a short and troubled one. Because peace was established, the States wished to disband the army. But he felt that powerful and unscrupulous neighbours would at once take advantage of such a defenceless situation. He had at last yielded to a project of disbanding one hundred and twenty companies, on condition that the disbanded officers should continue in receipt of full pay. The latter part of the compromise having been rejected by the province of Guelders and the city of Amsterdam, William again declared himself against any disbanding. He then began a tour to the principal cities. Accompanied by the principal colonels of the army, he personally pled and expostulated with the burghers. These conferences were suddenly interrupted by a deputation from Amsterdam, Haarlem, and other towns, whose errand was to request the Prince to postpone his visit to them. He interpreted this message as an affront, a feeling which was not removed by a prolonged correspondence, and the result was the imprisonment of six of the principal magistrates in the Castle of Lovestein. William followed up this step by besieging Amsterdam with a military force; this was on the 30th of July 1650. The citizens opened the sluices and flooded the country; and, three days after, the Prince and the city concluded a treaty of accommodation. He then released the incarcerated magistrates, on condition “that they should be for ever disqualified for any public employments or places.” He also sent an explanatory paper to the States, which was returned unopened, on the ground that no justification was required, as the difference had been adjusted. This beginning of tranquillity was all the Prince lived to see. Small-pox carried him off on the 6th of November following, in the twenty-fourth year of his age.
The death of Prince William the Second terminated Schomberg’s residence in Holland. The reason of his retirement has been preserved by Bishop Burnet — “Schomberg was the Prince of Orange’s particular favourite, but had so great a share in the last violent actions of his life, seizing the States, and in the attempt upon Amsterdam, that he left the service upon his death.”
All that can be said about the private life and affairs of Frederic de Schomberg is, that we cannot suppose that at this date he was a rich man. He was only a soldier of fortune. His paternal estates in the Palatinate had been confiscated. He had the armorial bearings of the Princes of Cleves, his ancestors (“quorum adhuc gestat insignia”). He was a Count of the Holy Empire, and had other titles of nobility; but these dignities furnished no revenues. He had also entered into the married state, his wife being by birth his first cousin Johanna Elizabetha de Schomberg, daughter of Henry Thierri, Count of Schomberg, residing in Wesel. She was the mother of his five sons.
He turned his steps towards France. The French army was open to him, he having served with it already. He was also ready to enter into the church membership with the Huguenots of France most heartily. His poverty was a visible martyrdom for the Protestant faith. And it was not to the Lutheran form of Protestantism that he was attached, but to the system which the Lutherans styled Calvinistic, and which its adherents called Evangelisch.
Both in the Palatinate and in Holland, the Catechism of Ursinus was used, often called the Belgic Catechism, and now, the Heidelberg Catechism. The whole life of Frederic Schomberg proves that he really believed the doctrines so beautifully expressed in that Catechism. Because it is little known, and as I have long thought that it might be the rallying point for a grand incorporation of Protestant Churches, I request my readers to picture young Schomberg repeating a few of its questions and answers, with a view to recommend it to their approval. How suitable to an exile is the beginning of the Catechism.
Quest. 1. “What is thy only consolation in life and death? — Ans. That both in soul and body, whether I live or die, I am not mine own, but belong wholly unto my most faithful Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who, by His precious blood most fully satisfying for my sins, hath delivered me from all the power of the devil, and so preserveth me that, without the will of my heavenly Father, not so much as a hair may fall from my head, yea, all things must serve for my salvation. Wherefore by His Spirit He also assureth me of everlasting life, and maketh me ready and willing that henceforth I may live to Him.”
The second question gives a lucid division of personal and practical religious truth:
Quest. 2. “How many things are necessary for thee to know that thou, enjoying this consolation, mayest live and die happily? — Ans. Three — the first, what is the greatness of my sin and misery; the second, how I am redeemed from all sin and misery; the third, what thanks I owe unto God for this redemption.”
The Catechism is divided into three portions accordingly. The first portion concludes with
Quest, 11. “Is not God merciful? — Ans. Yes, verily He is merciful, but so that He is also just. Wherefore His justice requireth that the sin which is committed against the Divine Majesty of God should also be recompensed with extreme, that is, everlasting punishments both of body and soul.”
The following is the appropriate introduction to the second department:—
Quest. 12. “Is there yet any way or means remaining whereby we may be delivered from these punishments and be reconciled to God? — Ans. God will have His justice satisfied, wherefore it is necessary that we satisfy either by ourselves, or by another. Quest. 13. Are we able to satisfy for ourselves? — Ans. Not a whit. Nay, rather we do every day increase our debt.”
We pass on to
Quest. 21. “What is true faith? — Ans. It is not only a certain knowledge, whereby I surely assent to all things which God has revealed unto us in His word, but also an assured trust, kindled in my heart by the Holy Ghost through the Gospel, whereby I repose myself upon God, being assuredly persuaded that remission of sins, everlasting righteousness and life, is given not to others only, but even to me, and that freely through the mercy of God for the merit of Christ alone. Quest. 22. What then is necessary for a Christian to believe? — Ans. All that is promised in the Gospel, which the Articles of the Apostles' Creed, being the Catholic and undoubted Christian belief, teach us in one sum.”
Then follows a catechetical exposition of the Creed — which being completed, we have arrived at
Quest. 59. “But now what profit redoundeth thence unto thee that thou believest all this? — Ans. That I am righteous in Christ before God, and an heir of eternal life. Quest. 60. How art thou righteous before God? — Ans. Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ, insomuch that if my conscience accuse me, that I have grievously trespassed against all the Commandments of God, nor have kept any one of them, and moreover am still prone to all evil, nevertheless the full and perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ is given and imputed to me without any merit of mine, of the mere mercy of God (if only I accept this boon with a true confidence of heart) even as if I had never committed any sin, or as if no spot at all did cleave unto me — yea, as if I myself had perfectly performed that obedience which Christ performed for me. Quest. 61. How affirmest thou that thou art made righteous by faith only? — Ans. Not that I please God through the worthiness of my faith; but only because the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ is my righteousness in God’s presence, and I cannot take hold of this righteousness, or apply it unto myself in any other way than by faith.”
This second department winds up with the Sacraments, and good specimens of Protestant definitions are supplied by Questions 67 and 80.
Quest. 67. “Do not then both the word and sacraments tend to this end — to lead our faith to the sacrifice of Christ finished on the Cross as to the only ground of our salvation? — Ans. It is even so. For the Holy Ghost teacheth us by the Gospel, and assureth us by the Sacraments, that all our salvation standeth in that only sacrifice of Christ offered up for us on the Cross. Quest. 80. What difference is there betwixt the Lord’s Supper and the Popish mass? — Ans. The Lord’s Supper testifieth unto us that we have perfect remission of all sins, for the sake of that only sacrifice of Christ, which Himself once fully performed on the Cross — also, that we by the Holy Ghost arc ergrafted into Christ, who now according to his human nature is not on earth but only in heaven at the right hand of His Father, and will have our worship addressed to Him there. But in the Mass it is denied that the quick and dead have remission of sins for the only Passion of Christ, except Christ be still daily offered on their behalf by the Mass Priests; it is also further taught, that Christ is bodily under the species of bread and wine, and ought therefore to be worshipped in them. And so the very foundation of the Mass is nothing else but an utter denying of that only sacrifice and passion of Christ Jesus, and is accursed idolatry.”
Quest. 86. “Because we are redeemed from all our sins and miseries, without any merit of ours, by the mercy of God for Christ’s sake — for what cause are we then to do good works? — Ans. Because Christ, after He hath redeemed us by His blood, reneweth us also by His Spirit to His own image, that we, receiving so great benefits, should show ourselves all our lifetime thankful unto God, and should honour Him; secondly, that every one of us may be assured of his faith by its fruit; and lastly, that by our honest and good behaviour we may win others unto Christ.”
The principal contents of this department are an explanation of the Ten Commandments, some instruction on the duty of prayer, and a paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer, evolved clause by clause catechetically, for instance —
Quest. 125. “Which is the fourth petition? — Ans. Give us this day our daily bread; that is, give us all things needful for this life, that thereby we may acknowledge and confess Thee to be the only fountain from whence all good floweth, and that without Thy blessing all our care and industry (yea, even Thy gifts themselves) cannot prosper us, but are hurtful to us. Grant therefore that we, taking off our confidence from all creatures, may settle it on Thee alone.”
Animated with these sentiments, Schomberg removed his family into France in the end of 1650 or the beginning of 1651. He served in the army as a gentleman volunteer in 1651 and 1652, until he effected the purchase of a company in Les Gardes Ecossaises (the Scotch Guards). His campaigns were in Poitou and Champagne. At the siege of Rhetel, as the senior officer present, he had the chief command of the royalist infantry. The prime-minister, Cardinal Mazarin, rewarded him with promotion to the rank of Lieutenant-General. In this rank he served under Marshal Turenne in Flanders, and had an honourable share in the taking of Landrècies, Condé, and Saint-Guilain; he was appointed Governor of the latter place.
The siege of Valenciennes in 1656 was sadly memorable to him, for during its progress Otho, one of his younger sons, was killed before his eyes. The presence of mind, with which he continued to give his orders, was generally observed. It was well known what a loving and exemplary father he was, and he received both admiration and sympathy. Turenne gave him the principal charge of the retreat of the French army, in which he did justice to his military talents, and it is still spoken of as la belle retraite. In March 1657 he had to surrender Saint-Guilain to the enemy, but made a gallant resistance. A few months later he took Bourbourg, and was made governor of that town.
He is next mentioned in connection with the siege of Dunkirk, which the French, co-operating with the English under Morgan and Lockhart, took from Spain for Oliver Cromwell. This was on the 17th June 1658. The French had soon after to fight the Spaniards under the Prince of Condé at Dunes (or Downs). Schomberg commanded the second line of the left wing; and Condé was defeated here also. The victors now overran a great part of Flanders. Schomberg was at the taking of Bergues and other places, and obtained a second governorship.
The Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659 gave him a short period of repose, during which it is said he visited Germany. A new field now opened up to him; and to describe it we must take a momentary retrospect of eighty years.
In 1580, on the death of Henry, the Cardinal King of Portugal, who was the last of his generation, and (according to ecclesiastical regime) a celibate, a number of collateral heirs proclaimed themselves. Among these claimants Philip II., the king of Spain, had a very fair case to submit to genealogists, but he preferred to rely on military force, and seized the throne. Catherine, Duchess of Braganza, having no funds to enter upon this rough style of competition, had to content herself with the conviction that her pedigree proved her right. Her son, Duke Theodosius, and her grandson, Duke John, both professed outwardly to be obedient subjects of the Spanish potentates, Philip III. and Philip IV. The tranquil mind of Duke John would have kept him within his magnificent estates in comparative retirement. But the instinctive unpopularity of the fourth Philip’s sway in Portugal, especially as deputed to a Spanish Vice-Regal lady, made more apparent the liberal and virtuous Duke of Braganza’s popularity with the Portuguese nation. After a deceitful calm, a very summary insurrection put the crown on the Duke’s head, and enthroned him in Lisbon as King John IV. This was in December 1640. For sixteen years he successfully defended his frontiers against the Spaniards, who could not attempt any bold stroke, on account of the drain upon their resources made by their war in Flanders. He died in 1656, and his sons being minors, his widow, Queen Louisa, took the reins as Regent. She was even more popular than the late king, for the people knew that it was her ambition and spirit that had placed and sustained her husband at the head of the revolution. The want of a good general procured her some reverses and disappointments in the national war, which was continued.
In the Peace of the Pyrenees, Spain saw an opportunity for recovering Portugal with one great effort; it being understood that Louis XIV., who notoriously sympathized with independent Portugal, had bound himself by treaty to send no succours to the Portuguese army.
The Queen Regent of Portugal, having heard of Schomberg as an able general, desired her agent in France, Joaom d’Acosta, Count of Soura, to treat with him. Her proposal was that he should have the real command of her armies, although a Portuguese officer would have the name of generalissimo. Portugal was divided into provinces, in each of which there was a military governor in command of an army. The seat of war was the province of Alentejo, where, according to the rules of the Portuguese service, the regular military governor could not be superseded. Schomberg’s appointment would therefore be Camp-Master-General of the army of Alentejo, with a salary of 12,000 crowns, and a prospect of promotion to the military governor-ship in the event of a vacancy.[2]
When Louis XIV. heard of this overture, he at once relieved Schomberg of his connection with the French army, giving him a handsome retiring pension. He charged him to select his followers secretly (who should be clandestinely paid by France), and to proceed to London, where he might openly negotiate with the Portuguese ambassador at the court of Charles II., who had by this time been restored to the British throne. This enabled Louis to reply to the Spanish king’s inevitable remonstrance by saying, that Count Schomberg was not a Frenchman, but a German; and the King of France could not prevent his enlistment in the Portuguese army, when the peace establishment of the French army did not require his services.
Schomberg, who had been admitted to renewed friendship with the titular Charles II. in Paris, had thus the opportunity of saluting him as a real king in his recovered dominions. He was still allowed to speak freely, and to give advice. But he afterwards told Burnet, when narrating his recollections of this period, “I found the king’s mind was so turned to mirth and pleasure that he seemed scarcely capable of laying anything to heart.” One of his neglected advices was that Charles should declare himself to be the chief defender of European Protestantism; “though religion is not what your Majesty professes to have much heart for, yet such a course would be for your interest; it would keep the princes of Germany in willing subservience, and would make your Majesty the umpire in all their affairs; it would also procure for the restored King of England great credit with the Huguenots of France, and would keep the French government in perpetual fear of him.” This advice was unpalatable to Charles, because he was ready to sacrifice all public and serious interests on receiving pocket-money from the French monarch. “I advised the king,” said Schomberg to Burnet, “to employ the military men who had served under Cromwell, who were the best officers I ever saw. I was grieved to see that they were dismissed, and that a company of wild young men were those on whom the king relied.”
The memory of Cromwell was what Charles detested. As it was to the late Protector and to his admired European policy that England owed Dunkirk, he had no pride in possessing it The French offered to buy it at a tempting price; so he had an opportunity to gratify both his malicious envy and his love of money. Schomberg strongly advised him not to give up such an important post to a foreign power. “But,” said some of the weaklings in the dress of soldiers, “the place is not tenable; in time of war it will not pay the cost of defending it, and even in time of peace it will be a source of expense.” Lord Clarendon then asked Monk to give his opinion, and that General said, “By all means let it go for the sum offered by France.” Schomberg exclaimed, “The King should keep it. Considering the naval power of England, I declare it cannot be taken. France may talk big, as if they will break with England unless it is given up; but I know that any such rupture is far from their thoughts. I have been at Dunkirk and have studied its defences, and I am sure that it can never be taken from England as long as she is mistress of the sea. The holding of it will be an effectual check upon both France and Spain”. But no courtier supported Schomberg, and Dunkirk was sold, amidst the contempt of all Europe.
Schomberg’s ostensible errand was to the Portuguese Ambassador at the English court. When all needful business had been transacted, he set sail, under the convoy of an English frigate. He had made an appointment with the Count of Soura to take him and his men on board at Havre-de-Grace; before that town he came to anchor on the 31st October 1660. Soura and his men were assaulted by some Spaniards who had been keeping a look-out, and who by giving and receiving some bodily wounds soothed their own wounded feelings. Louis XIV., still acting his part, had given the Spanish Ambassador his royal permission to arrest Schomberg if he could. But being (of course) forewarned, Schomberg remained on board the frigate, set sail again on the next day, and arrived at Lisbon on the 15th of November. His immediate followers, who met him there, were 80 officers, and 400 veteran cavalry, who had also been officers; another account makes their number 600.
The years 1661 and 1662 Schomberg spent in training the Portuguese troops, who had many of the qualities of good and brave soldiers, though apparently incapable of producing generals. He also stood on the defensive against Don John of Austria, the General of the Spaniards, who made no progress while Schomberg built the necessary walls and forts in the frontier towns. In the meantime, Queen Louisa had strengthened her cause by marrying her daughter Katharine to the King of England. Charles, in acknowledgment of her handsome dowry, sent the Earl of Inchiquin with a body of British troops to augment the Portuguese army. The Earl was soon recalled, and the auxiliaries were handed over to Schomberg.
In 1663, having trained the army, and having at last convinced the jealous native officers that they could not campaign successfully without him, Schomberg was prepared to act on the offensive. He also could leave Lisbon without uneasiness, his friend Fremont dAblancourt, who was a clandestine envoy from the French court, being in constant and friendly communication with the Portuguese ministry. The Portuguese town of Evora having surrendered to Don John, the army under the direction of Schomberg marched to oppose his progress, and, coming up, cut off his supplies. Don John had no choice but to attack the Portuguese, which he did in the neighbourhood of Evora, and was repulsed. Schomberg pursued him, and over- took him in the vicinity of Estremos. “A battle being now unavoidable,”[3] says Dunlop, “Don John possessed himself of two hills, on which he planted his cannon and the greater part of his infantry. His baggage was placed in the rear, and the cavalry was drawn up in four bodies on the plain below. The fight continued for a long while doubtful, till the English auxiliaries in the service of Portugal undertook to climb, on their hands and feet, the steep hills on which the Spaniards were posted; and though many of them were slain in the attempt, the greater part gained the summits. This exploit encouraged three regiments of Portuguese infantry to ascend by an easier and more circuitous path. The Spanish foot were so daunted by this unexpected boldness of the enemy, that they immediately betook themselves to flight, though Don John, alighting from his charger, used every exertion to induce them to rally and face their antagonists. And now the Portuguese horse, which had also been successful against the Spanish cavalry, advancing to second their foot, a great slaughter ensued.” The victorious cavalry were chiefly Schomberg’s veterans. The victory was complete, Evora was restored, and that year’s campaign was closed.
The nominal commander-in-chief, the Count de Villa-Flor, having thwarted Schomberg on all occasions, was now removed. Schomberg was promoted to be the Military Governor. He was also made a Grandee of Portugal, and was given the title of Count of Mertola. These honours were not only rewards for his services, but also heraldic qualifications for high military command.
In 1664, the Spanish army was again commanded by Don John, but could do little more than look on, while Schomberg entered the Spanish territories and took Valencia d’Alcantara. The campaign ended in the defeat, near Castel-Rodrigo, of the Duke of Ossuna, an amateur general of the Spaniards.
In 1665, the Marquis of Caracena superseded Don John in the command of the Spaniards, and gave a kind of personality to the war by marching upon Villa-Viciosa, the landed estate of the Dukes of Braganza, within which was the palace of Braganza. He took the town, and was besieging the fortified castle that towered above it, when Schomberg and the Portuguese army were descried in the distance. The two armies met on the plain of Montesclaros. On this occasion the Portuguese had some advantage in numbers. The first charge was on the Spanish side, and the Italian auxiliary cavalry under the command of Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, broke the first line of the Portuguese. I follow Dunlop’s narrative, and now quote his words:— “ Schomberg having advanced to rally his troops, the Prince of Parma, who had an eye on all his movements, engaged with him in personal combat, by striking him on the breast two blows with his sabre, which nearly threw him from the saddle, and would have slain him, had not the Prince’s sword been shattered at the second stroke on the cuirass which the general wore under his uniform.” The Portuguese, however, gained the day, and completely surrounded and entangled the retreating enemy. The Spanish artillery and the troops, left before the Castle of Villa Viciosa, fled to Badajoz. The Portuguese made an irruption into Andalusia, and carried off immense booty. Dunlop adds, “The decisive battle of Montesclaros completed the misfortunes and national disgrace of Spain. It finally fixed the crown on the head of the King of Portugal, and highly raised that country in the scale of European nations. For this splendid victory, however, as well as all their previous successes, the Portuguese were chiefly indebted to the military skill of General Schomberg and the valour of the foreign auxiliaries.” We have to add that it hastened the death of Philip IV. of Spain, who expired on the 17th of September 1665, in the sixty-first year of his age and forty-fifth of his reign. At the end of this year, the idiotic and violent Alphonso VI. of Portugal declared himself of age, and his mother, the Queen Regent, having surrendered the government into his hands, died in a convent on the 18th of February 1666.
Overtures for peace between Spain and Portugal began immediately after the victory of Montesclaros. But during diplomatic delays, Schomberg continued to fight, and carried all before him in 1666 and 1667. At last peace was settled on the 12th of February 1668. Schomberg had also to take some share in the settlement of the government at Lisbon. The king’s imbecility and abandoned behaviour gave occasion to a project for laying him aside, and putting the sceptre into the hand of his brother Pedro. The king’s favourite minister endeavoured to restore Alphonso’s influence by marrying him to Mary, Princess of Nemours. The young queen soon obtained from the Pope an annulment of this marriage, having first formed a party at court, which Schomberg joined. The king was also forsaken by his premier, Count Melhor; and the regal power, though only with the title of regent, was transferred to the brother. It was under Pedro’s rule that peace was proclaimed. Schomberg left Portugal on the 1st of June.
D’Ablancourt preserves one or two anecdotes connected with his residence in that kingdom.
The jealousy and insubordination of the Portuguese officers often resulted in their disregard of Schomberg’s orders and in the marring of a whole day’s projects. One night he directed General Denis De Mellos to detach six squadrons of horse to a certain point. The next day he easily detected that his order could not have been obeyed. The officer on being interrogated replied, that he had sent thirty cavaliers with a guide, having thought that sufficient. “Sufficient?” exclaimed Schomberg, “yes, sufficient to cut off your head, for you had your orders in writing.”
During the battle of Montesclaros he remarked to his aide-de-camp, when they observed some of the enemy’s horses and men tumbling down from a mountain, “The painters of ancient battles are accused of drawing largely upon their imagination, but that looks very like one of their pictures.”
On two occasions Schomberg, having resolved to retire from Portugal on account of the hostility of the king and his courtiers, was actually retained by the king, who was moved by an appeal from “The Council of Four-and-Twenty.” This Council was a constitutional corporation, consisting of twenty-four tradesmen of Lisbon. A candidate for membership had to prove himself to be a son and grandson of persons of eminent integrity and purity of morals; and, on being elected, he was nobilitated. The President, who was styled the Judge of the Council, had a power in the kingdom like that of the Tribune of the People among the ancient Romans. This Judge twice made an official representation to the king to the following effect:— “I declare to your Majesty in the name of all your good Subjects, that you ought not to let the Count of Schomberg depart, and further, that any advisers to the contrary are enemies to the State.” Then turning to the king’s secretary, he demanded a written minute, recording what he had said. The king, according to the usage in such a case, replied:— “Due regard shall be had to your remonstrance.”
General Schomberg’s name became quite a proverb in Portugal and in Spain. The Spanish Guards, raised soon after his departure, were called The Schombergs. The peasants so often dressed their images of the saints in “embroidered coats, long periwigs, and French points,” that the priests at last interfered, and forbade all persons, in time to come, to adorn the saints à la Schomberguoise.
On the 14th of June Schomberg arrived at La Rochelle. Luzancy says, “A famous wit was commanded to compliment him. The Count’s modesty was more troubled at his praises than ever was his courage at the sight of the Spanish battalions. And he replied that he had endeavoured only to be as instrumental as he could to the glory of his Prince.”
Having brought him home to his adopted France we may again glance at his domestic life. He was a widower, but the date of his wife’s death is not on record. I have already mentioned the death of his son Otho. Another son, Henry, died at Brussels of wounds received in battle; but whether before or after the date at which we have arrived, I cannot ascertain. Three sons remained to him, namely Frederic, Mainhardt, and Charles, all of whom were with him in the Portuguese service. In the following spring he entered upon a second marriage. The lady of his choice was a zealous French Protestant of good family, Susanne d’Aumale, daughter of Daniel d’Aumale, Sieur d’Haucourt, and of Francoise de Saint Pol. The marriage was solemnized in the Parisian Temple of Charenton, on the 14th of April 1669. The witnesses who signed the registration were two gentlemen, Philip de Madaillan, and Jean Jacob Fremont d’Ablancourt, and three ladies, Marguerite de Rohan, Jeanne dAumale, and Madelaine de Montmorency.
Schomberg went to England in 1673. He was brought over by King Charles to command his army on the French model. Burnet says that so high was his reputation in France, that he was “not raised to be a Marshal only on the account of his religion.” The following is Burnet’s description of him: “He was a calm man, of great application and conduct. He thought much better than he spoke. He was a man of true judgment, of great probity, and of a humble and obliging temper; and at any other time of his life he would have been very acceptable to the English.”
The nation now disliked him as “one sent over from France to bring our army under a French discipline.” The Duke of Buckingham hated him, for he wished to be commander-in-chief himself. The Duke of York and Lord Clifford black-balled him as a Presbyterian, because “he liked the way of Charenton so well, that he went once a-week to [the City of] London French Church, which was according to that form.”
“He was always pressing the king,” says Burnet, “to declare himself the head of the Protestant party. He pressed him likewise to bring his brother over from Popery; but the king said to him, ‘You know my brother long ago, that he is as stiff as a mule.” . . . . Schomberg told me he saw it was impossible that the king could bring any great design to a good effect; he loved his ease so much that he never minded business; and everything that was said to him about affairs was heard with so little attention that it made no impression.”
War had been raging since April 1672 between Holland and the united forces of France and England. In 1673 the navies were the most forward in the combat, and the Dutch had fought gallantly with the combined French and English fleet. The latter confederates agreed tolerably well until the removal of the Duke of York from the command of our navy. Then the French captains, through the Duke’s influence with the French ambassador at London, had to obey their admiral by keeping their ships aloof, and allowing the Dutch and English to perform several drawn battles. One French captain, who thought it his duty to co-operate with the English, was sent to the Bastile as soon as he returned to France. The effect of this upon the English and upon Schomberg is thus told by Burnet: “This opened the eyes and mouths of the whole nation. All men cried out and said, we were engaged in a war by the French, that they might have the pleasure to see the Dutch and us destroy one another, while they knew our seas and ports, and learned all our methods, but took care to preserve themselves. Count Schomberg told me he pressed the French ambassador to have the matter examined; otherwise, if satisfaction was not given to the nation, he was sure the next parliament would break the alliance. But by the ambassador’s coldness he saw that the French admiral had acted according to his instructions. So Schomberg made haste to get out of England, to prevent an address to send him away. And he was by that time as weary of the court as the court was of him.” Instead of this rather prosaic exit the enthusiastic Trenchard furnishes us with an eloquent climax as to the motive of the exit, namely, “the never-to-be-forgotten generosity of that great man, General Schomberg, whose mighty genius scorned so ignoble an action as to put chains upon a free people.”[4]
The year 1674 found Louis XIV. grasping at the Spanish Netherlands, sword in hand. The brilliant actions of Turenne in Flanders threw into the shade Schomberg’s successes. The frontier-province of Rousillon had only a small army under a Lieutenant-General to resist Spanish invasion from Catalonia; thither Schomberg was sent with reinforcements, and to take the chief command. On the 26th June 1674,[5] he arrived in time to rescue Lieutenant-General Le Bret, who had been defeated, and whose cavalry had been entrapped by an ambuscade. By striking an effective blow, which he followed up by a masterly disposition of his troops, he checked the advance of the Spaniards, who retired into their own country. In September a revolt broke out in Sicily against Spanish rule, and the quarrel was fomented and prolonged by the French during that year and the year following.
In 1675 Schomberg was favoured by the withdrawal of a portion of the Spanish forces for the defence of Sicily, but his achievements were nevertheless admirable. He entered Catalonia, and secured an extensive tract of country for the subsistence of his army. After a siege of five days, he re-took from the Spaniards the first-rate fortress of Bellegarde in Roussillon. In Catalonia he took the maritime town and castle of Ampurias, and the fortresses of Bascara, Figuieres, and Joui. The 30th of July 1675 was the most eventful date in his life, and of it the historian Benoist shall speak:—
“Marshal Turenne was killed, and his death occasioned great changes in public affairs. The most considerable consequence was, that the event compelled the court to do justice to the Comte de Schomberg, to whom a baton of Marshal of France had long been due. Religion had been the pretence for the injustice of withholding it. The King had with his own mouth assured him that he would promote him to that dignity if he would declare himself a Catholic. Schomberg had the courage to reply that his religion was more dear to him than everything else, and that if it hindered him from being actually invested with that honour, it was a sufficient consolation to him that His Majesty judged that he was worthy of such rank in his service. At last political necessity became stronger than Catholic zeal. It was now necessary to offer to the Comte de Schomberg an honour which he did not court, and even to make the offer in a manner to make it plain that they did not expect to draw him into abandoning his religion by the bait of such promotion. On one occasion they had exacted of him that he should give a hearing to some Doctors, who would (they predicted) remove his scruples of conscience. He had had the complaisance to listen to the Doctors, and the resolution to declare that they had not satisfied him. That had happened while he had the command in Catalonia. It was soon after that last declaration of his that he there received the news of the justice which had been rendered to him.”
In reviewing Schomberg’s career at a later date, Macaulay gives his testimony as follows:— “His rectitude and piety, tried by strong temptations, and never found wanting, commanded general respect and confidence. Though a Protestant, he had been during many years in the service of Louis, and had, in spite of the ill offices of the Jesuits, extorted from his employer, by a series of great actions, the staff of a Marshal of France.”
The date of his promotion was 30th July 1675. Among Pastor Du Bosc’s letters is one headed À Monsieur Le Due de Schomberg, 12th May 1675, thanking him for giving his son a commission in his regiment. Another is to Madame Schomberg, who seems to have resided at Perpignan during her husband’s command in Catalonia. There is a third letter to Monsieur Le Maréchal Due de Schomberg, 7th August 1675, which I shall quote as expressing the sentiments of the French Protestants:—
“My Lord, I thought to have filled my sheet with nothing but thanks for your extraordinary kindness shown to my son; but public news have arrived to furnish a more important subject for my intended letter; I mean, the justice which His Majesty has just done to your merits and services in promoting you to a dignity which has so long been your due. Never, my Lord, has the creation of a Marshal of France obtained such universal approbation. There are often Marshals whose promotion has set everybody upon the enquiry who they are, and what they have done. But you, my Lord, have the applause of the whole kingdom, and your humble servants are overjoyed when they hear the manner in which all the world is speaking of you. There is no person who does not agree in the sentiment that only yourself is capable of supplying the place of Monsieur de Turenne, and of consoling the State bereaved of such a great and illustrious general. Judge, my Lord, what must be the joy of the Church of God to see you in a rank which will make your exemplary faith and virtues more conspicuous, and make your protection more powerful. Henceforth you are our glory and our support. Our eyes are all turned towards you, and our chief satisfaction is, that there is no occasion for apprehension as to your Christian stedfastness after the proofs, so authentic and so admirable, which you have already given of it. Nothing remains to be desired on your behalf, my Lord, but a long life for useful services to the glory of God, of the King, and of yourself; and to let all Europe see that God still raises up among us heroes not a whit less worthy than those of past times. Europe will offer many prayers for your preservation; but I very humbly beg you, my Lord, to believe that none will be more ardent or more assiduous than my own. Nobody can lie under greater obligations than do I; and the care which you have deigned to take of that young man, who has the honour of being near your person, so penetrates my heart, that I have not words to express with what gratitude I shall all my life remain your Lordship’s, &c, &c.
That Schomberg was a Duke as well as a Marshal of France appears from the patent of nobility which at a later date he received from the English Crown, and in which all his former titles and honours are accurately narrated. We may therefore infer that Du Bosc’s biographer was correct in styling him Le Duc de Schomberg at a date prior to his receiving the highest military honour.
The Duke of Schomberg began active service as a Marshal in 1676 in Flanders. All the military deeds of this year were eclipsed by the naval triumphs of another Protestant of France, Admiral Du Quesne, in the Mediterranean. But as to Schomberg, the Biographie Universelle informs us that he raised the sieges of Maestricht and Charleroy; and Burnet says that he got great honour in raising the siege of Maestricht. In the spring of 1677 Louis XIV. took the lead of the army in Flanders, and his ambition for this species of glory was satisfied by the capitulation of Valenciennes (which yielded on the first assault), and by one or two other successful sieges. It was a standing joke among the officers, that Louis would never fight a battle, according to the safe sentiment, that royal blood must not be put in jeopardy, like blood of inferior dye. But an unexpected situation of affairs put this sentiment, as well as its regal advocate, into jeopardy. The French were besieging Bouchain, according to the correct routine, and the King with an army was posted to cover the besiegers. Suddenly the Prince of Orange, who had been lately defeated by the Duke of Orleans, drew his army together, and went up almost to the King’s camp, offering him battle. And now, in the general opinion, Louis had a grand opportunity for gaining a decisive victory, but he heard all such representations coldly.
At last the King said, “I will come to no resolution until I hear Marshal Schomberg’s opinion.” Secretary Louvois sent a trusty messenger to bring the Marshal, and to give him a hint what his opinion must be, in consideration of the King’s valuable life. Schomberg could have no wish to overwhelm in disaster the young Prince of Orange. Though he had not any personal acquaintance with him (for he was the posthumous child of Prince William the Second), he felt affection for his person, and admired the gallant course on which he had entered. Being not unwilling to take the Secretary’s hint, he gave his opinion in the King’s tent in conformity with it. This was his speech:— “The King is here, carrying forward his design to cover the siege of Bouchain. A young general has come up on a desperate humour to offer battle to His Majesty. I do not doubt but it would be a glorious decision of the war. But the King ought to consider his own designs, and not be led out of these by any bravado, or even by the great hope of success. The King ought to remain in his post until the town is taken. Otherwise he suffers another man to be the master of his royal counsels and actions. When the town is taken, then His Majesty must proceed to new counsels; but till then, I think he should pursue his first design.” Burnet adds, “The King said that Schomberg was in the right, and he was applauded that day as more of a courtier than a general. I had all this from his own mouth.” The King soon returned home, leaving Schomberg in command.
In 1678 Schomberg commanded a division in Flanders. Finding, however, that his men were constantly drafted off and given to Marshal Crequi, he resigned his command, telling Crequi that he had applied to the king for leave to be among the veteran troops. He actually volunteered to serve under that Marshal, rather than continue in the inaction to which he seemed to be doomed, and which he could not submit to. The object of the French king this year, was to spread consternation in Holland, that the Prince of Orange might yield to have the terms of peace dictated to him. The object was gained, and the peace of Nimeguen was concluded in the beginning of 1679.
In 1683 Dr. Burnet, paid a visit to France, owing to the feeling of the court party against him as a friend of the late Lord Russell. Lady Russell’s uncle, the Marquis De Ruvigny, introduced him to Marshal Schomberg. Burnet had no audiences of Louis XIV., but made his observations. “The exterior of the king,” he writes, “ was very solemn. The first time I happened to see him was when the news came of raising the siege of Vienna, with which he was much struck (Schomberg told me), for he did not look for it.” The news which disappointed the king was that Sobieski, King of Poland, had gained a victory which relieved Vienna from the Turkish Invasion. Louis had intended to do that favour to Austria, and to exact as a reward a diplomatic acknowledgment that all the places, seized by him on the pretence that by treaty they were his, did really belong to France. The consequence of the disarrangement of this scheme was, that Louis began a war without any formal attempt at justification in the autumn of 1683. In 1684, Schomberg received his route for Germany at the head of 25,000 men; but a few days after (namely on the 15th of August) peace was concluded by the mediation of Holland, France obtaining a formal cession to herself of some of the stolen property. Thus the Marshal’s expedition became unnecessary.
He continued to live in Paris in 1684 and 1685. As to the summer of the latter year, the following friendly letter to Pastor Du Bosc has been preserved:—
“We have learned, Sir, from some of your friends, your intention to retire from this kingdom, and we have been very deeply touched by the news. We have been talking about the places where you might wish to settle. Rotterdam has been named, and it is said that you would prefer it to Copenhagen. I took the liberty of saying what I think of this plan; allow me, Sir, to repeat my opinion to yourself. I spent some years in Holland, and ascertained that Rotterdam is one of the towns where both the air and the water are most unwholesome. As for society, there are few people there whom a person of your abilities would find congenial. Denmark may be colder, but not much. And the air and water are more healthy, and the country not subject to inundations. The court being resident at Copenhagen, and the Queen being of La Religion, you will find better support and more rational conversation, even among the Lutherans. To the latter (and this is a point more worthy of consideration), through the grace of God, and the understanding which he has given you, you can supply explanations, which will make them less bigoted in their religion, and will inspire them with gentleness towards ours. This is an important service which you might render to such a persecuted religion as ours is in France. But you are better able to judge than I am — so I conclude by assuring you, Sir, that no one can honour you more perfectly, and be more truly yours than I am, &c.
On the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in October, Schomberg “stedfastly refused to purchase the royal favour by apostasy.” “The man,” says Macaulay, “whose genius and valour had saved the Portuguese monarchy at the field of Montesclaros, earned a still higher glory by resigning the truncheon of a Marshal of France for the sake of his religion.” Lady Russell wrote on the 15th January 1686, “Marshal Schomberg and his wife are commanded to be prisoners in their house, in some remote part of France appointed them.” Louis XIV. had rejected his request for permission to retire to Germany, but at last allowed him to seek a refuge in Portugal.
He sailed for Lisbon in the spring of 1686, accompanied by his wife (who, according to French usage, had the title of La Maréchalle), and with a few attendants. His departure was generally regretted. All lovers of their country esteemed him as one of their best generals. Sourches says, “There was great regret throughout France, because they lost in him the best and the most experienced of the generals.” Another authority[6] assures us “that the Grand Condé placed Schomberg on the same level as Turenne, and perceived in him rather more liveliness, presence of mind, and promptitude than in Turenne, when it was necessary to prepare for action on very short notice.” The Sieur D’Ablancourt enumerates as his characteristics “indefatigable diligence, presence of mind in fight, moderation in victory, and sweet and obliging carriage to every one.”
“On his voyage to Lisbon,” says Luzancy, “a storm raged for two days and two nights. He knew well whence the blow came, and how to apply himself to divert it. He caused continual prayers in the ship to be made to Him who commands the waves to be still. And so all in the ship were preserved.”
“All the favour he could obtain [from the King of France],” writes Burnet, “was leave to go to Portugal. And so cruel is the spirit of Popery that, though he had preserved that kingdom from falling under the yoke of Castile, yet now that he came thither for refuge, the Inquisition represented the matter of giving harbour to a heretic so odiously to the King, that he was forced to send him away.”
A letter from Schomberg to Du Bosc (who had fixed his residence at Rotterdam) shows that his brief stay in Portugal was trying to his feelings.
“I do myself a great pleasure, Sir, in being able to give you the news of my safe arrival in this country, and it will also be a pleasure to be able to write to you as occasion requires, with more liberty. Madame de Schomberg sends you her compliments. She has borne her journey by sea better than one could have expected. But here one is equally unserviceable to oneself and to friends. It is my part to commit myself to divine Providence, hoping that one day He will guide us to a place where we can worship Him with more liberty. The Ambassador labours here with great officiousness to oblige five or six Protestant merchants to become Romanists. He has found a disposition in the King of Portugal to withdraw from them his protection, pretending that it is due to himself that he should be even more zealous than the King of France. There are some recantations. I beg you, Sir, to believe me ever and entirely yours,
The Marshal left the ungrateful Pedro, and set out for Holland; Professor Weiss informs us that “on his way from Portugal, Schomberg coasted England to observe the ports and places most favourable for the landing of an army; he also opened communications with the chiefs of the English aristocracy, who were weary of James II.’s government, and desired a revolution.” Burnet says that he “took England in his way;” and Luttrell notes concerning him that he paid a visit to King James in the beginning of 1687, and was kindly received. A correspondent of John Ellis wrote from London, January 1686-7, “Arrived last night from Holland, Marshal Schomberg with his weather-beaten spouse, from Portsmouth by land, the wind being cross by sea.”[7]
On his arrival in Holland, he waited on the most renowned Prince of Orange, and was at once treated as a friend and counsellor. It would not have accorded with the secrecy of William’s projects to engage the services of the great Marshal at that time. He was, therefore, encouraged to accept from the Elector of Brandenburg a commission to be his commander-in-chief; and he removed to Berlin. About this time his wife died; she had for some time been afflicted with a fatal malady. Benoist panegyrised her as a lady of lofty courage and eminent piety. And Du Bosc mourned the loss of Madame la Maréchalle, as an illustrious lady, whose memory the Church would never let die, and who was a miracle of virtue of every kind.
Schomberg was thus left a widower again, at the age of seventy-two. He continued to reside in Prussia. Here his honours and employments were multifarious. He was governor-general, minister of State, a member of the Privy Council (whose other members were of grand ducal blood), and also a generalissimo of all the troops. A number of the mousquetaires or horse-guards of the King of France, being refugees in Brandenburg, and all of them gentlemen by birth, were formed into two companies of grands mousquetaires, each mousquetaire having the rank of a lieutenant in the army.[8] The Elector assumed the colonelcy of the first company, which was quartered at Prentzlau, and Schomberg was the colonel of the second, quartered at Furstenwald. It was for him that the Elector built the mansion in Berlin, which afterwards became the Palace of the Crown Prince.
But he was a cheerful giver as well a thankful recipient of bounty. The French officers in Brandenburg, on the suggestion of the Marquis de Villarnoul, agreed to subscribe five per cent, of their pay for the relief of poor French refugees. The other refugees, whom the Elector had provided for, offered to contribute at the same rate, one sou for every livre (a half-penny in each tenpence) of their annual pensions. And the Elector established an office for this charity, which was known as the Chambre du sol pour livre. “The Duke of Schomberg,” says Weiss, “subscribed the annual sum of 2000 livres, which was regularly paid until his departure for England.”
The storm which arose upon the interference of France with the affairs of Cologne brought Schomberg again into the front of events. He was appointed to command the imperial forces, sent in 1688 to defend that electorate and to garrison the city of Cologne. According to Luttrell, he garrisoned Cologne in September with 2600 foot and some horse. The French were thus blocked up on the German side; while the revolt of Amsterdam from French counsels obstructed the interference of Louis XIV. in an opposite direction.
France having her hands so full on the Continent — the Pope himself not escaping her armed visitations — the Prince of Orange hastened his projected descent upon England. He himself took the chief command; but it was necessary that a general of skill and fame should be his deputy, and, as Macaulay observes, “it was impossible to make choice of any Englishman without giving offence either to the Whigs or the Tories; nor had any Englishman then living shown that he possessed the military skill necessary for the conduct of a campaign.” Macaulay delights to expatiate on Schomberg’s popularity with the English, who believed him to be “the first soldier in Europe, since Turenne and Conde were gone.” Burnet says that letters from England to the Prince pressed him very earnestly to bring Marshal Schomberg, “ both because of the great reputation he was in, and because they thought it was a security to the Prince’s person, and to the whole design, to have with him another general to whom all would submit in case of any dismal accident.” The Prince was most happy to send for Schomberg, who accepted the second command with alacrity. The Princess also commissioned him to take the command under her authority if her beloved husband should fall. The French refugees in Holland volunteered in great numbers, and were formed into companies both of cavalry and infantry.
It is well known how storms and uncertain winds kept men’s minds on the rack of anxiety. Timid counsels were the most dangerous obstacles, and it required all the constancy of the Prince, and all the reputation of Schomberg, to preserve unanimity and co-operation. At last we find them at anchor at Torbay, and the Prince of Orange and Marshal Schomberg mounted on horses furnished by the villagers of Broxholme, and marking out an encampment for the soldiers. This was on Monday, the 5th of November 1688, a day set apart in the country for thanks-giving on account of our ancient deliverance from a Popish plot; and strikingly appropriate for the public thanksgiving which the troops of the great champion of Protestantism offered up for their safe landing on our shore. Schomberg again rode by the side of William at the famous entry into Exeter on the Friday following.
The feelings of the patriots of England are described in the rhymes of Daniel Defoe; and the following quotation from his “True-Born Englishman” is appropriate here:—
“Schomberg the ablest soldier of his age,
With great Nassau, did in our cause engage;
Both join’d for England’s rescue and defence,
The greatest Captain and the greatest Prince.
With what applause his stories did we tell!
Stories which Europe’s Volumes largely swell!
We counted him an Army in our aid,
Where he commanded, no man was afraid.
His actions with a constant conquest shine
From Villa-Viciosa[9] to the Rhine.”
One of these lines seems to have been borrowed from De Luzancy’s more poetical prose:— “The name of Schomberg alone was an army.”
At Exeter the surrounding peasantry offered to take up arms, and many regiments might have been enrolled. But Schomberg said that he thought little of soldiers fresh from the plough, and that if the expedition did not succeed without such help it would not succeed at all. William concurred. They had brought a respectable army. And Lord Cornbury, eldest son of the Earl of Clarendon, set an example, which was followed by numbers, of leaving King James, and joining the ranks of the Prince of Orange. On the 19th of November the former was at Salisbury, while the latter was at Exeter. William earnestly desired that there should be no bloodshed, that no Englishmen might resent his coming as the cause of mourning in their families. That was one reason why James wished an engagement to be brought about. Schomberg was told that the enemy were advancing, and were determined to fight; the old campaigner replied, “That will be just as we may choose.” As some skirmishing seemed inevitable, William put the British regiments in front, for which they felt pride and gratitude. Thus James’s army presented more of the appearance of foreign intruders, its van being Irish. “The Marshal de Schomberg threatened to bring most of them to their night caps without striking a blow,” says a writer in the “Ellis Correspondence.” No real battle took place. Hearing a rumour that the Ducal Marshal was approaching, James fled from Salisbury. The final result was, that the army of England declared that they would defend the person of the king, but would not fight against the Prince of Orange.
We pass on to the 18th of December, when William, having Schomberg[10] beside him, drove to St. James’ Palace, and took up his quarters there. On the 11th of February 1689, the Princess Mary arrived; and on the 13th, the crown was accepted from the Estates of the Realm by King William III. and Queen Mary. The year, according to the style then in use, was still 1688; and it was not till the 25th of March that the year 1689 began. The descendants of the French refugees, in arranging chronological notes concerning their ancestors, must remember that the summer, which followed February 1688 (old style), was not 1688 but 1689, and also that there were only three campaigns in Ireland, namely, those of 1689, 1690, and 1691.
On the 3rd of April 1689, Schomberg was made a Knight of the Garter, and was installed on the 11th, along with the Earl of Devonshire. On the 18th of April, “Frederic, Comte de Schomberg, Due et Maréchal de France,” was made Master-General of the Ordnance.[11] The duties of the Master-Generalship were to be discharged either personally or by deputy; and the office was to be held (habendum, tenendum, gaudendum, occupandum et exercendum) in the same manner as it had been by his predecessor George, Lord Dartmouth. He was made General of all their Majesties’ forces, and a Privy Councillor. He was also elevated to the English Peerage, and received the titles of Baron of Teyes, Earl of Brentford, Marquis of Harwich, and Duke of Schomberg.
During this spring and the beginning of summer, he had the only days of quiet and relaxation that he was destined to spend as an English subject. A few recollections of him at this period have been preserved. Bishop Burnet told him of his plan to leave behind him a history of his own times. “Let me advise you,” said the old soldier, “never to meddle with the relation of military details. Some literary men affect to tell their story in all the terms of war, and commit great errors that expose them to the scorn of all officers, who must despise narratives having blunders in every part of them, and yet pretending to minute accuracy.” The Right Reverend listener remembered the advice, and followed it. Cotemporaries[12] preserved the following reminiscences of Schomberg, applicable to this date:— “He was of a middle stature, well proportioned, fair complexioned, a very sound hardy man of his age, and sat a horse the best of any man. As he loved always to be neat in his clothes, so he was ever pleasant in his conversation, of which this repartee is an instance. He was walking in St. James’s Park amidst crowds of the young and gay, and being asked what a man of his age had to do with such company, he replied, ‘A good general makes his retreat as late as he can.’”
In the House of Commons he was highly eulogised. The debate about voting him a grant of money (which led to the king undertaking to make a grant of £100,000) has been preserved. 1689, April 24th. Sir Robert Howard began, “The Duke of Schomberg, one of the greatest captains in the world, under His Majesty the then Prince of Orange, had his estates and pension all seized in France, and he has waived all things in this world to serve you and his religion. He has been solicited by the Duke of Brandenburg, and by the emperor, to be their general. He has quitted all to serve this king and kingdom; hither he comes, and the king is not in a condition to reward him, otherwise than with the honour of the Knight of the Garter. The king’s condition is not equal to his desires to reward him. There cannot be a greater misfortune than to lose such a captain. I hope the House will do something for his fortune, as the king has done for his honour.”
Mr. Garroway said, “I have as high esteem as anybody for Marshal Schomberg. Though we have no present use for him, yet we may have. But how to raise money upon the people, and have it immediately given to Marshal Schomberg, I know not that precedent.” Sir John Guise suggested, “If you declare those who assist King James rebels and traitors, I doubt not but that the King, out of their estates, will give a reward to Marshal Schomberg for his service.”
Mr. Harbord said, “The king told me that he had told Marshal Schomberg that he being not in ability to gratify him, he would recommend him to the consideration of this House; and I doubt not you will be able to find out on Monday some way to do it.”
Sir Thomas Lee remarked, “You are told by Harbord that the king has had Marshal Schomberg under his consideration. I am surprised that the motion was not earlier. I remember when there were great commendations of General Monk here for what he had done; then the methods were these, the king gave him rewards and lands, and the parliament confirmed them afterwards. I would have it from the hand it ought, and I hope the crown will be maintained always in that plenty as to be able to do it. It will be best for the Marshal and the best for you.” Sir Christopher Musgrave interposed, “I have a great honour for Marshal Schomberg, but you are out of the way, if you put the question that we take upon us to recompense him for his service. That is a prerogative of the king only. We are only to enable the king to gratify such persons. I move for the order of the day.”
Sir Henry Goodricke observed, “This house is possessed of the great merit of this gentleman as all the Protestants of Europe are; but to lay this debate aside now, I am against it. I would have it in your books to acknowledge this gentleman’s great service to the king, and to enable the king to settle a grateful acknowledgment on this great man.”
Mr. Hampden, junr., concurred, adding, “Ireland is not to be reduced without a general; and this is the greatest general in Europe; he is used to conquer kingdoms. Portugal by him was restored to the rightful owner. You will use him for Ireland.” The debate was adjourned.
Lord Macaulay translates into his own pictorial language the testimonies of that summer. “Schomberg had wonderfully succeeded in obtaining the affection and esteem of the English nation. He was regarded by all Protestants as a confessor, who had endured everything short of martyrdom for the truth. The preference given to him, over English captains, was justly ascribed to his virtues and his abilities. He was a citizen of the world, had travelled over all Europe, had commanded armies on the Meuse, on the Ebro, on the Tagus, had shone in the splendid circles of Versailles, and had been in high favour at the court of Berlin. He had often been taken by French noblemen for a French nobleman. He had passed some time in England, spoke English remarkably well, accommodated himself easily to English manners, and was often seen walking in the Park with English companions. At fo urscore he retained a strong relish for innocent pleasures; he conversed with great courtesy and sprightliness; nothing could be in better taste than his equipages and his table; and every cornet of cavalry envied the grace and dignity with which the veteran appeared in Hyde Park on his charger at the head of his regiment.” [It has been ascertained that he was in his seventy-fourth year.]
The Duke was Colonel of the First or Royal Regiment of Foot. But he raised a cavalry regiment composed of French Refugee gentlemen,[13] which was peculiarly his regiment. The aged Marquis de Ruvigny co-operated with him, and also raised three infantry regiments of Huguenot refugees for the campaign in Ireland.
Leinster, Munster, and Connaught still acknowledged James as their king. Ulster was for William and Mary, but was unable to contend with the other provinces, who introduced Popish garrisons into many of its fortresses. Derry shut its gates against the Jacobites, and became the Thermopylae of the North of Ireland. One of the first acts of Schomberg as Commander-in-chief was to send to that glorious town relief under the command of Major-General Kirke.
At length Schomberg himself was appointed to take the command in Ireland. And about the 15th of July (1689) he paid a memorable visit to the English House of Commons.
Sir Henry Capel acquainted the House “that the Duke of Schomberg desired to have the honour to wait upon the House, he being just going in the service of the crown on the Expedition to Ireland. His merit was great, and the king had rewarded it like a king.”
I he Duke of Schomberg, being then introduced, sat down, covered, in a chair placed for him towards the middle of the House, where having continued some time (the serjeant-at-arms with the mace standing at his right hand), he rose, and uncovered, made a brief speech:— “Mr. Speaker, I have desired this honour to make my just acknowledgment for the great favours I have received from this House, and doubt not but to find the effects of it in His Majesty’s grace and favour. I also would take my leave of this honourable House, being now going to Ireland, where I shall freely expose my life in the king’s service and yours.”
The Speaker (Mr. Henry Powell, Member for Windsor) replied, “My lord, the services that have been done by your Grace to their Majesties and this kingdom are so great, that they can never be forgotten. I am therefore commanded by this House to acquaint you that they are extremely satisfied that their Majesties’ army has been committed to Your Grace’s conduct. This House doth likewise assure Your Grace that, at what distance soever you are, they will have a particular regard (as much as in them lies) of whatever may concern Your Grace or the army under your command.”
The Duke, from the first, found his greatest enemy in the English Commissariat. The Stewart dynasty had left all the public offices in a state of demoralisation, the officials plundering to enrich themselves, and sacrificing the power and honour of their country. He arrived at Chester on the 20th of July. “He was very uneasy,” says Oldmixon, a contemporary chronicler, “at the dilatory proceedings of the managers of both shipping and provisions, and proposed that the forces should march overland to Scotland, and embark at Port-Patrick, from whence it was a short passage over to Ireland, and it would have saved two or three months' time. This was opposed, as was every other measure that tended to the suppression of King James’s party, by those who had deserted him in his distress, and pretended a great zeal for King William’s interest and honour.” At length the Duke sailed from Highlake near Chester, accompanied by transports conveying 10,000 troops. Luttrell notes the day and the hour, the 12th of August at four in the morning. And with this the memoranda of a member of the expedition agree, the Rev. George Story, chaplain to Sir Thomas Gower’s Regiment. Mr. Story published his papers under the title, “An Impartial History of the Wars of Ireland from the time that Duke Schonberg landed an army in that kingdom to the 23d of March 1691-2, when their Majesties’ Proclamation was published declaring the war to be ended.” What remains to be recorded concerning the great Captain-General I shall compile from that publication, borrowing also some of Lord Macaulay’s observations, and not refusing contributions from other sources.
The expedition anchored in Belfast Lough, and the troops landed at Groomsport near Bangor, in the County of Down. “They lay upon their arms,” says Story, “all night, having frequent alarms of the enemy’s approach, but nothing extraordinary happened. Next day, being Wednesday the 14th, the Duke continued still encamped, and the garrison of Carrickfergus, apprehending a siege, burnt their suburbs.” On Thursday the Duke sent a party of about 250 men, commanded by Sir Charles Fielding, to see what posture the enemy was in about Belfast; they returned with information that Belfast was abandoned, and Colonel Wharton’s Regiment was sent to take possession of it. On Friday, Lieut-Colonel Caulfield and 300 men of the Earl of Drogheda’s Regiment were despatched to Antrim, and found that town also deserted by the enemy. On Saturday Schomberg took the army to Belfast. On Tuesday and Wednesday following twelve regiments of foot were sent to begin the siege of Carrickfergus, where the Irish garrison was commanded by Major-General Mackarty Moore.
The garrison held out gallantly till Tuesday, the 27th August, at six in the morning, when they capitulated, the terms being “to march out with their arms and some baggage, and to be conducted with a guard to the next Irish garrison,” namely, the Duke of Berwick’s headquarters at Newry. At the very time that the parley terminated, Colonel Wharton finding the breach in the wall immensely increased, was preparing to enter the town. “The Duke,” says Story, “sent to command his men to forbear firing, which with some difficulty they agreed to, for they had a great mind to enter by force. When firing ceased on both sides several of our officers went into the town and were treated by the Irish with wine and other things in the castle. The articles were scarce agreed to, till Mackarty Moore was in the Duke’s kitchen in the camp, which the Duke smiled at and did not invite him to dinner, saying, If he had staid like a soldier with his men, he would have sent to him; but if he would go and eat with servants in a kitchen, let him be doing.”
The French and Irish Jacobite garrisons had been so cruel to the Ulster Protestants, that Schomberg had great difficulty in carrying out the terms of the capitulation. Ulster men, who had themselves been sufferers, and who feared for their families at home if such ruffians were to be at large with arms in their hands, assaulted some of the outed garrison, but were restrained from committing murder. So infuriated were the peasants of the Presbyterian persecuted religion, that the Duke of Schomberg “was forced to ride in among them with his pistol in his hand” to prevent the Carrickfergus garrison from being murdered.
Being without horses to draw his artillery, Schomberg, who had rendezvoused his troops at Belfast on the 28th inst, marched without it, and ordered it to be sent by sea. His route was Lisburn, Hillsborough, Dromore, and Loughbrickland. At the latter place the Enniskillen Horse and Dragoons joined him, and formed his van, till the army came within sight of Newry. This town was observed to be in flames, the Duke of Berwick having set it on fire before retreating from it, as he had done to other places. Schomberg sent a trumpeter to Berwick with the threat that no quarter would be given if this barbarous burning was continued. Berwick consequently, on retiring from Dundalk, left it uninjured. On the 7th September Schomberg halted there to wait for his artillery, which was to be landed at Carlingford. It had not arrived on Saturday, the 14th of September; and in the meantime King James’s generals and his royal Bourbon ally had assembled a force of 28,000, which encamped at Ardee. Schomberg, with greatly inferior numbers, would not risk a battle. He knew the deficiencies of his own army, and had no reason to doubt that his Franco-Hibernian opponents would be better able to do their duty in a field of battle.
“On this (Saturday) evening,” says Story, “it was given out in orders that none that went foraging should pass the Horse out-guards; and that the Horse might cut wood for their stables, and also the Foot, for their conveniency; so that this was the first public appearance of our staying here. . . . In two or three days most of the wood about the town, as also most of the fruit-trees in my Lord Bedloe’s orchard, were cut down.”
In choosing his camp, the Duke of Schomberg may be liable to criticism for not discovering that the situation was unhealthy. It was selected for the purposes of defence, on low ground, having the sea to the south, hills and bogs to the north, mountains to the east, and Dundalk and its river on the west. Part of the unhealthiness arose from the unforeseen circumstance of an unusually rainy autumn. As to the advantages of the situation, a hint is to be found in the Duke’s despatch, dated 20th September, “Having gone this morning to find my son, Count Schomberg, who was pretty near the videttes of the enemy, we saw a body of cavalry advance which did not march in squadron, and which appeared to be King James or several general officers. From thence they could see our camp; but I believe the sight which most displeased them was the arrival of eleven vessels in the road of Dundalk, from which they might judge that they could not starve us here, as they hoped to have done.”[14]
The soldiers were impatient at inaction, in the midst of privation and disease. But the majority were fighting men only in name. In Schomberg’s opinion, his French regiments were the best. “Others can inform your Majesty,” he wrote on the 12th October 1689, “that the three regiments of French infantry, and their regiment of cavalry, do their duty better than the others.” The Enniskilleners had learned to fight though they preferred to plunder. The Dutch knew how to keep their tents dry and clean; and if the English soldiers had condescended to copy them, they need not have sickened and died in such numbers. But the numerous English and Irish recruits had to learn how to fire a gun; to learn to take an aim required more time. Officers, as well as privates, had to be drilled and instructed; and many of them were very unwilling to give regular attendance. So that Schomberg, when such men clamoured to be led into action, good-humouredly said, “We English have stomach enough for fighting. It is a pity that we are not as fond of some other parts of a soldier’s business.” This anecdote is from Macaulay. The same anecdote, or a similar one, is told by Mr. Story thus: “The General said one day when he came to the camp and found that the soldiers had not hutted according to orders, We Englishmen will fight, but we do not love to work (for he used to call himself an Englishman, for all he loved the French so well).”
The defensive warfare of this campaign is well pictured in Story’s book. “Monday, September 16th, six hundred men were ordered to work at the trenches, which the Duke saw then convenient to draw round his camp, since he had an enemy that was too strong for him very near, and therefore he must put it out of their power to force him to fight; for woe be to that army which by an enemy is made to fight against its will ! And this is the advantage of an entrenched camp that none can compel you to give battle but when you please.”
“Saturday, September 21st, about nine in the morning (it being a very fine clear day) our camp was alarmed. The enemy displayed their Standard-Royal (for the late king was at the head of his army, having come to the camp some days before), and all drew out, both horse and foot, bringing along a very handsome field train. . . . The Duke went out to observe them, and sent for Colonel Beaumont’s regiment, into the trenches beyond the town, and about an hour after for Colonel Earl’s. It was reported that several great officers were for fighting, and wished the Duke to send for the horse, who were most of them gone foraging as far as Carlingford; but his answer was, Let them alone, we will see what they will do. He received several fresh accounts that the enemy advanced, and always bid, Let them alone. . . . . Our gunners sent from the works to see if they might fire amongst the enemy, who by this time were within cannon-shot; but the Duke would not suffer it, except they came within musket-shot of our trenches. He observed the enemy’s motions and postures, and said he saw no sign of their designing to fight; only once they drew their army into two lines as if they would fight, and then he sent Lieutenant-General Douglas to order all the foot to stand to their arms; and he sent to the horse, that upon the firing of three pieces of cannon they should return to the camp, but till then to go on with their foraging. Meantime the Duke, as if there was no fear of danger (for he used to say that it was not in their power to make him fight but when he pleased) alighted from his horse, and sat him down upon a little hill, where he seemed to sleep for some time About two o’clock, when the enemy began to draw off, the Duke sent orders for the soldiers to return to their tents.”
“The orders were that night, that none should forage, nor stir out of the camp next day; and that the brigades, that did not mount the guards, should be exercised at firing at a mark when it was fair weather (as it was very seldom), for the Duke knew that most of his men had never been in service, and therefore he would have them taught as much as could be.”
Next day the Jacobite camp was shifted nearer to Drogheda. On Monday all the French Papists in disguise, amounting to about two hundred foot soldiers enrolled in the Huguenot regiments, having been detected were shipped off, except six ring-leaders who were hanged on Thursday, the 26th. If the Duke had given battle on the 21st, they would have then gone over to the enemy.
“The weather for two or three days proved pretty fair and the soldiers were exercised with firing at marks, but it was observable that a great many of the new men, who had match-locks, had so little skill in placing of their matches true, that scarce one of them in four could fire their pieces off; and those that did, thought they had done a feat if the gun fired, never minding what they shot at” (page 24).
The two following extracts from Schomberg’s Despatches[15] justify his management of the campaign:— “Dundalk, 6th October. It appears to me that your Majesty is of opinion that we should push the enemy, before this army perishes by diseases, or the succours arrive which the enemy expect from France. I should desire much to do the things which your Majesty is so eager for. I would have willingly marched to-morrow. But your Majesty will see by the opinion of the General Officers that all the army is without shoes, that it could not march two days without one half being barefooted, and that thus it is necessary to wait till shoes come from England, where Mr. Harbord has sent for them The provision waggons are all arrived, and “their horses are in a very bad state. Shales says that he was obliged to make use of them at Chester, because he could not find any to hire. I have already said that he did not even take care to embark one hundred and twenty artillery horses which are still left there.”[16] “Dundalk, 8th October. I am uneasy to venture your army against one which is (as all the world here knows) at least double the number of ours, of which a part is disciplined and pretty well armed, and hitherto better nourished with bread, meat, and beer than ours. But what is still more annoying is, that the colonels who have lately raised their regiments, and particularly the Irish lords, thought of nothing but to enrol boys at a cheap rate. I clearly foresaw this when their commissions were given them, and I spoke of it to your Majesty at the meeting of the committee for Irish affairs; but Lord Halifax’s advice was followed rather than mine. . . . . Without enhancing my services, or taking any account of the chagrins which I have suffered, it is not without difficulty that I have come here and kept my ground, almost without bread.”[17] Burnet says:— “Schomberg had not the supplies from England that were promised him. Much treachery or ravenousness appeared in many who were employed. And he, finding his numbers so unequal to the Irish, resolved to lie on the defensive. . . . . If he had pushed matters and had met with a misfortune, his whole army and consequently all Ireland would have been lost; for he could not have made a regular retreat. The sure game was to preserve his army; and that would save Ulster, and keep matters entire for another year. This was censured by some. Better judges thought the managing this campaign as he did was one of the greatest parts of his life.” “He obliged the enemy,” says Harris, “to quit the province of Ulster. The North of Ireland was thus secured for winter quarters.” “By skilful temporizing,” says Professor Weiss, “he contrived in some sort to create an Orange territory, and so to prepare the great victory of the following year.” Whatever praise is due as to this campaign, Schomberg earned it all. The officers of the army had been demoralized under the Stewart’s unpatriotic rule, and so had the officials of the commissariat. Peculation and embezzlement were the business and object of their lives, which some of the officers but partially atoned for by flashes of bellicose impetuosity and English pluck. Soldiers and ammunition were sacrificed to the thoughtlessness and laziness of officers who did not look after them; and those who ought to have been the Duke of Schomberg’s coadjutors were practically spies and enemies in his camp. Abundance of criticism, as the slow growth of after-thought, was often forthcoming at his side, or behind his back, but he was favoured with no suggestive counsel as the ripe fruit of experienced forethought and military education. “Hitherto,” he says in his despatch from Carrickfergus, 27th August 1689,[18] “I have been obliged to take upon myself all the burden of the provisions, the vessels, the artillery, the cavalry, all the payments, and all the detail of the siege.” And although he found officers to accept rank and pay, the work was done as before. Mr. Story testifies, “He had the whole shock of affairs upon himself, which was the occasion that he scarce ever went to bed till it was very late, and then had his candle, with book and pencil, by him. This would have confounded any other man.”
The ringleader of intestine traitors was Mr. Henry Shales, the Purveyor-General. When his villanies came to light, intelligent Englishmen ceased to find fault with Schomberg. The House of Commons was roused. “Mr. Walker, Colonel and Minister in Londonderry,” writes Oldmixon, “gave information that the miscarriages were owing chiefly to the neglect of Mr. Shales, Purveyor-General to the army, by whose default Duke Schomberg had waited for artillery, horses, and carriages, above a month, that the soldiers had all along been almost without bread, the horses without shoes and provender, and the surgeons without proper medicines for the sick. Upon which the Parliament addressed the king, that the said Shales be forthwith taken into custody, and all his accounts, papers, and stores secured.” The king replied on the 20th November that, having been previously informed of “Captain Shales’s misdemeanours,” he had anticipated the request of the House, having already written to the Duke of Schomberg to put him under arrest. This was done, and Shales was arrested and disgraced.
The misconduct in all departments of the commissariat had also defrauded Schomberg of the necessary time for doing anything considerable before winter. A pamphlet, entitled “The Last Year’s Transactions Vindicated,” which goes over William’s first year under English skies, from 5th November 1688 to 5th November 1689, lucidly sets forth how impossible it was to do much for Ireland in that first year of transition. “Their Majesties,” says the writer, “were proclaimed on the 13th February (1689), and the first Money-Bill was not passed in Parliament till the 21st March; nor did it amount to the half of the arrears due to the Army and Navy, and other necessary debts. The next supply was that of the Poll Bill, passed the 1st of May, which for some months thereafter was not all got into the Exchequer, and fell far short of the Parliament’s estimation of it. Now, notwithstanding all this slowness in coming in of money, his Majesty shewed his earnestness to relieve Ireland to that height as to order ammunition and provision to be sent to Londonderry even before he was proclaimed king (which supply came in good time); and thereafter within two weeks after his accession, he ordered another supply of forces to be sent (which miscarried and unhappily returned). His Majesty applied himself in the meantime to send over a greater force under Major-General Kirk, which were shipped for Ireland in May. . . . While these forces were on their way for relief of Londonderry, his Majesty was incessantly giving orders to his army to march from all places of England to Chester and Liverpool, in order to their transportation under the command of the Duke of Schomberg. In spite of a thousand discouragements not to be here named, the General took journey for Chester on the 17th of July, and after having taken time to review and give necessary orders for his army, he set sail on the 12th of August, and landed at Bangor the next day, having some days before despatched four other ships with provisions for Londonderry. Here we are come to the latter end of August in an account of the affairs of Ireland, and pray what more could have been done all this time, considering the circumstances we lay under? After the landing of the army, the first action Duke Schomberg fell upon was the making himself master of Carrickfergus and of the country about, which he accordingly effected. As to the rest of his conduct there, we have all the reason in the world to believe that so great a General knows well on what grounds he has gone; and the event will prove how much it will conduce to the happy determination of the affairs of Ireland, that the General delayed to enter into any further action the last summer, and that he has put his army in winter quarters.”
Schomberg also discharged the duties of a chief Governor of Ireland. He found under the nominal monarchy and real martial law of James the Second that desolation reigned, towns and villages were crumbling to ruin, trade and traders were paralyzed. But the historian, surveying the state of the northern province at the date of the army going into winter quarters, could report a welcome change. “Ulster now enjoyed comparative tranquillity. Since the arrival of Schomberg the inhabitants had begun to return to their homes, security and good order were generally restored, and the usual occupations were resumed in the towns and throughout the country.”[19] The Protestant clergy, the majority of whom were Presbyterians, returned from their retirement or from exile. With regard to the latter ministers of Ulster, the king gave to their deputies, the Rev. Patrick Adair, the Rev. John Abernethy, and Colonel Arthur Upton, the following royal letter to be delivered to the Duke:—
“To our Right Trusty and Right Entirely Beloved Cousin and Councillor, Frederick, Duke of Schomberg, General of our Land Forces.
“Right Trusty and Right Entirely Beloved Cousin and Councillor, we greet you well. Whereas some ministers of the Presbyterian persuasion have humbly besought us in behalf of themselves, their brethren, and their congregations in the province of Ulster in our kingdom of Ireland, that We would take them under our gracious protection, and as an assurance thereof that We would please to recommend them to you or other our Chief Governor or Chief Governors of our kingdom for the time being — and We being entirely satisfied of the loyalty and fidelity of our said subjects, and commiserating the sufferings and calamities they have of late lain under, which We are desirous to put an end to as far as We can contribute towards it, We have thought fit to grant their request, and accordingly We do hereby recommend to you in a particular manner the said ministers and their congregations, requiring you to give them that protection and support that their affection to our service does deserve, and to shew them all fitting countenance that they may live in tranquillity and unmolested under our government. And so We bid you very heartily farewell. Given at our Court at Whitehall, the 9th day of November 16S9, in the first year of our reign.
“This is a true copy of the Letter written to the Duke of Schomberg.
The Jacobite army was the first to go into winter quarters. Schomberg followed their example, sending the sick by sea, and taking the body of his army by land to Lisburn as headquarters, and to the surrounding towns and villages. He had still to defend himself against unfavourable criticism. He wrote to his sovereign from Lisburn, 27th December 1689, “I have made many reflections on what your Majesty had the goodness to write to me on the 20th, and without tiring you with the state of my indisposition, I can assure you that my desire to go to England arises only from that cause, and the physicians' opinion that the air and the hot waters will cure me of the ailment which my son informed you of. There are people in England who believe that I make use of this ailment as a pretence; that is not true. I confess, Sir, that, without the profound submission which I have for your Majesty’s will, I would prefer the honour of being permitted to be near your person to the command of an army in Ireland, composed as that of last campaign was. If I had risked a battle, I might have lost all that you have in this kingdom, not to speak of the consequences which would have followed in Scotland, and even in England. . . . What most repels me from the service here is that I see by the past it would be difficult for the future to content the parliament and the people, who are prepossessed with the notion that any English soldier, even a raw recruit, can beat above six of the enemy.”[21]
Not only as a soldier and a tactician, but as a disinterested man, old Schomberg was pre-eminent. He could say to the king, from Lisburn, 30th December, “I have saved you since I came hear, £3000 on the artillery, and the same sum on the contingent money, as the accounts indicate. As I do not love to pillage, I do what I can to prevent others, who think of nothing else.” He also did a great act of self-denial. The troops were in want of their pay, and he at once offered his grant of £100,000[22] for the purpose, thus sacrificing his hopes of retiring to a snug mansion and plentiful estate. He wrote to the king from Lisburn, 7th March 1690: “At this distant quarter I ought not to enter into the question, whence arises this want of money. I am astonished that in London, among those who have so much, none should be found to offer to lend it to your Majesty. I would not presume to act ostentatiously, but if I had in my hands the hundred thousand pounds your Majesty has done me the grace to bestow upon me, I would deliver them to the person you might appoint for the payment of the army.”[23] The loan was accepted, and the interest was fixed at four per cent.; and £100,000 was paid to the troops. It appears from documents connected with this business, that Schomberg had the rank of Captain-General in the English army.
Lord Macaulay concurs with those who believe that “not even in the full tide of success had Schomberg so well deserved the admiration of mankind,” as in the campaign of 1689; “that Schomberg’s intellectual powers had been little impaired by years is sufficiently proved by his Despatches, which are still extant, and which are models of official writing, terse, perspicuous, full of important facts and weighty reasons, compressed into the smallest possible number of words.” Sir John Dalrymple says, “They clear Schomberg of the imputation of inactivity which has been unjustly charged upon him, and do honour to the talents of a man who wrote with the elegant simplicity of Caesar, and to whose reputation and conduct, next to those of King William, the English nation owes the Revolution.”
“The Protestant Nobility, Clergy, and Commonalty” of the Province of Ulster expressed their gratitude to the Duke through a deputation, consisting of Lord Blayney, Sir John Magill, the Dean of Down (Dr. John MacNeal), the Dean of Clogher (Dr. John Wilkins), Francis Hill, Esq.; John Hawkins, Esq.; Charles Stewart, Esq.; Robert Donnelson, Esq.; James Hamilton of Tullymor, Esq.; Daniel MacNeal, Esq., and Randal Brice, Esq. These memorialists presented a petition, showing “That your Petitioners, with all imaginable gratitude, are highly sensible of, and truly thankful for, your Grace’s indefatigable labour, hazard, toil, and trouble in restoring, securing, and protecting the Protestant interest of this Province.” Their petition was, that as the community was “ready to contribute their utmost advice and assistance,” they might hold meetings to consult and consider fitting expedients to be offered to the Duke. Schomberg accepted the petition, and replied to it in writing:— “His Grace readily consents to what is desired by the Petitioners, and is willing to receive any advice they shall be pleased to offer for the security of this Province, and the farther successful management of the war against the common enemy — Signed by order, Robert Gorge, Secretary.”
The campaign of 1690 began with the taking of Charlemont, the last fortress in Jacobite hands in Ulster. The carrying of war into the south was delayed till June, when William himself came over to take the chief command. There is extant (and now printed in the “Ulster Journal,” vol. i., p. 59) an order from the Duke of Schomberg, dated at Lisburn, 8th January 1689[24] (i.e. 1690, n.s.), directing Godfrey Richards, purveyor, to buy in England “a quantity of good, clean, dry, wholesome oats” for their Majesties’ artillery.
I have the original of another order of Schomberg’s of this period. In case it has not been printed, I copy it here:—
“Whereas we have recd. information that a Parcell of Hay bought by Godfry Richards, Purveyor to the Trayne of Artillery, from Mr. Whiteside of Mylone and others is detained and refused to be delivered by some officer or others of the army quartered there, These are to direct and require the said officers or others quartered there or any two of them forthwith to repaire to our headquarters to shew their reasons for their detaining the said Hay, or forthwith to deliver it to the said Godfry Richards or his order as they will answer to the contrary at their peril. Given at Lisburne the 18th of Novr. 1689. Schonberg.
“P.S. — Notwithstanding the said Hay be delivered, they or any two of them are to repair to our headquarters to give an accot. by what authority they are there quartered.”
The king landed at Carrickfergus on Saturday, June 14th. He immediately drove off to Belfast in the Duke of Schomberg’s carriage, which was sent for him. He was joined by the old Captain-General at a solitary white house on the shore by the estuary of the Laggan. According to the loyal veteran’s arrangements, guns were fired from post to post on the road, as the carriage came in sight, until the Castle of Belfast in its turn fired a royal salute, and His Majesty arrived in the town. There on Sunday, the 15th, the king’s chaplain, Dr. Royse, preached before the Court and staff on the text, “Who through faith subdued kingdoms” (Hebrews xi. 33). Schomberg introduced Dr. Walker, minister and one of the Governors of Derry, at the head of a Protestant deputation.
The army was assembled at Loughbrickland. On the 24th of June, the march southward commenced. The king, who by letter had twice pressed Schomberg to fight the enemy during the last campaign, was determined to give battle without delay, and in a way that should astound the natives, and create a sensation among all the newsmongers of the three kingdoms. But it must be remembered that His Majesty was at the head of a finer army, superior both in numbers and discipline, a large portion of whom had been entirely trained by the Duke of Schomberg, and kept together by that Duke’s money.[25]
When on the 30th June they came in sight of the valley of the Boyne, the army halted. The enemy were on the opposite side of the stream. William resolved to make Oldbridge, on the banks of the river, his centre, and to charge straight forward through the water upon the enemy, and to do so the very next day. At first the Duke of Schomberg, at a council held at nine o’clock at night, opposed such precipitation; but, submitting to the King’s wishes, he made this suggestion: “Send part of the army, both horse and foot, this very night towards Slane Bridge, and so get between the enemy and the Pass of Duleek.” The suggestion was favourably received, but was rejected by a majority of votes, whereupon the Duke retired to his tent. The order of battle was sent to him soon afterwards, and, with some tokens of vexation, he remarked: “This is the first time an order of battle was sent to me.” The next morning, however, he entered upon his command, as second to the King, with great vivacity, and conspicuously displaying his blue ribbon of the Order of the Garter. It might, however, have been guessed, that if he could only see his master victorious, he would choose to die in the battle, suspecting, as he did, that some of his comrades were bent on destroying his influence with his prince.
Schomberg gave the word of command. The cavalry plunged into the water. To the left the Marquis de Ruvigny’s younger son, Lord de la Caillemotte, led on the Huguenot infantry. It was some time before the enemy could face the English and Dutch cavalry. When at last the Irish cavalry charged, they made their strongest effort against the Huguenot line, which had not been provided with defensive weapons of sufficient length. The gallant Le Caillemotte was carried off mortally wounded, and, at the same time, encouraging his men who were wading through water that reached to their breasts. And now (to borrow Lord Macaulay’s description) “Schomberg, who had remained on the northern bank, and who had watched the progress of his troops with the eye of a general, thought that the emergency required from him the personal exertion of a soldier. Those who stood about him besought him in vain to put on his cuirass. Without defensive armour he rode through the river, and rallied the refugees whom the fall of Caillemotte had dismayed. ‘Come on,’ he said in French, pointing to the Popish squadrons; ‘come on, gentlemen, there are your persecutors.’ [Allons, messieurs, voila vos persecuteurs.][26] These were his last words. As he spoke, a band of Irish horse rushed upon him, and encircled him for a moment. When they retired he was on the ground. His friends raised him, but he was already a corpse. Two sabre wounds were on his head, and a bullet from a carbine was lodged in his neck.”
The body of Schomberg was embalmed an put in a leaden coffin. The preparations for embalming were equivalent to a post mortem examination, and they proved him to be in perfect health and soundness, like a man in his bodily prime. It was announced that he would be buried in Westminster Abbey, but after the victory of the Boyne, Dublin, having been evacuated by James, and receiving William peaceably and loyally, had the honour of enshrining the hero’s ashes. He was buried beneath the altar in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
That the Irish Romanists regarded him as an object of aversion is not to be wondered at. When La Caillemotte summoned the garrison of Charlemont to surrender to the Duke of Schomberg, Governor Teague O’Regan replied: “The Duke is an old knave, and, by St. Patrick, he shan’t have the town at all.” A ridiculous attempt was made to brand him as a fiery zealot. A friar was brought to the Jacobite Court at Dublin, pretending to be dumb. The story was that Duke Schomberg had caused his tongue to be cut out, to put an end to his propagating a false religion, and had declared that he would serve all the Popish clergy, regular and secular, in the same way. The fraud was exposed by King James himself, who had been asked to repeat the process upon Protestant ministers.
Pastor Du Bosc’s biographer thus expresses the tribute which was universally paid to the great Schomberg:— “That hero could not better crown such a glorious life than by dying in the arms of victory, fighting in the cause of the best prince in the world, in whose court he had been brought up. Yet the pastor could not help shedding tears at the loss of so great a man, who deserved to live for ever.” Professor Weiss happily represents the same sentiments. He says: “Everywhere he justified the confidence he inspired by the most irreproachable loyalty, by the rare constancy of his opinions, by his courage and military skill, and by all those chivalrous qualities which our modern civilization daily effaces, and has not yet replaced.” It has been said that on hearing of Schomberg’s death, the king took the chief command and shouted, “Let the King of kings be king, and I will be general.”[27] We more than hesitate to accept this tradition, because the king from the day of his joining the army in Ireland had assumed the chief command. But there can be no doubt that the king was impressed with the calamity, and fully concurred in Luzancy’s reflection upon it, “Heroes seem to have a title to life, and though they have run a long course of years, their death is always surprising and untimely.” Misson says, “The Duke of Schomberg, who was one of the first that passed the river, and who was very far engaged among the enemy, was miserably murdered by a party of Horse that happened to know him. Thus died one of the most illustrious Generals and most excellent men of these times, at a very advanced age, to the great sorrow of the king.”
Mr. Story, having spoken of the losses on our side and on the enemy’s, proceeds thus:—
“All this was nothing in respect of Duke Schomberg, who was more considerable than all who were lost on both sides; whom his very enemies always called a brave man and a great General. I have heard several reasons given for the Duke’s passing the river at that juncture; but doubtless his chief design was to encourage the French whom he had always loved, and to rectify some mistakes that he might see at a distance. However ’twas, this I am certain of, that we never knew the value of him till we really lost him, which often falls out in such cases. And since it was in our quarrel that he lost his life, we cannot too much honour his memory, which will make a conspicuous figure in history whilst the world lasts. He was certainly a man of the best education in the world, and knew men and things beyond most of his time, being courteous and civil to everybody, and yet had something always that looked so great in him, that he commanded respect from men of all qualities and stations.”
At Belfast the Duke had listened to Dr. Royse’s sermon. The preacher had endeavoured to animate both officers and soldiers to place their confidence in God, by using the scriptural language, “when you pass through the waters He shall be with you, and through the rivers they shall not overflow you.” Although, according to the sound of the words, the promise might seem to have failed the heroic warrior and confessor in his last battle, yet that in its true meaning it was realised by him we cannot doubt. He was in the seventy-fifth year of his age, and for fifty years he had thought deeply over his open Bible.
The first Duke of Schomberg had five sons:—
| 1. Frederick, a refugee in Germany, born in 1637 or 1638, “a resolute and understanding gentleman,” says D’Ablancourt. He survived all his brothers (according to Haag). [He did not die in December 1700 as had been erroneously reported to Luttrell.] He visited England in 1668 at the head of the British Auxiliaries returned from Portugal, and duly reported his and their arrival to his Britannic Majesty. | |||
| 2. Mainhardt (see a separate biography). | |||
| 3. Otho | who were killed in the French service, as has been already recorded. | ||
| 4. Henry | |||
| 5. Charles (see a separate biography). | |||
In the confusion of those times, no monument to the first Duke was erected. His descendants justly thought that the nation should erect it, and therefore silently bore Dean Swift’s upbraidings for a neglect which did not seem to be theirs. The Dean at last took the duty and privilege upon himself and upon the Chapter of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, who provided funds for a monument, the Dean contributing the inscription:—
“Hic infra situm est corpus Frederici, Ducis de Schomberg, ad Bubindam occisi, a.d. 1690. Decanus et Capitulum maximopere, etiam atque etiam, petierunt ut hreredes Ducis monumentum in memoriam parentis erigendum curarent. Sed postquam per epistolas, per amicos, diu ac saepe orando, nil profecere, nunc demum lapidem statuerunt; — saltern ut scias, hospes, ubinam terrarum Schombergenses cineres delitescunt. Plus potuit fama virtutis apud alienos, quam sanguinis proximitas apud suos. a.d. 1731.”[28]
This epitaph is milder than the first draft of it which is printed in the Gentleman’s Magazine for April 1731, and which declares that what was suggested to the Duke’s heirs was “monumentum quantumvis exile,” — that the Dean and Chapter “hunc lapidem indignabundi posuerunt,” — and that the visitor now knows " quantillâ in cellulâ tanti Ductoris cineres, in opprobrium haeredum, delitescunt.”
- ↑ The true dates of his mother’s and father’s deaths expose the wrong habit of historians of old in concocting history out of conjectures and probabilities. The received opinion was that Anne, Countess of Schomberg, accompanied the Elector and Electress into Holland as a widow, and that her husband had just been killed at the Battle of Prague, the only fight that the Elector made for the throne of Bohemia. This opinion is demolished by the facts, and along with it the fine sentence written by Miss Benger (“Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia,” vol. ii., page 93. London, 1825):— “Of the ladies, Elizabeth alone retained self-possession; her bosom friend Anne Dudley was overwhelmed with the fate of her husband who had fallen in the fatal conflict” [the Battle of Prague].
- ↑ Memoirs of the Sieur d’Ablancourt— translated from the French copy printed at Paris in 1701. London, 1703.
- ↑ Memoirs of Spain, during the reigns of Philip IV. and Charles II., from 1621 to 1700. By John Dunlop. 2 vols. 8vo. Edin.: Clark.
- ↑ “History of Standing Armies,” by Thomas Trenchard, Esq. (published in 1698), reprinted 1731, p. 29.
- ↑ I. Gifford’s “History of France.”
- ↑ Erman and Reclam’s “Memoirs of the Refugees in Brandenburg,” vol. ix., p. 268. This interesting work is in the French language. Readers need not be repelled by its nine volumes, as they are in large type, and of a portable duodecimo size.
- ↑ The Ellis Correspondence. Letters to John Ellis, Esq., Secretary at Dublin to the Commissioners for the Revenue of Ireland. Two volumes. Edited by Lord Dover.
- ↑ In Sawle’s “Transactions of last Summer’s Campaign in Flanders” (London, 1691 ), there is the following account of the Elector of Brandenburg and his escort:— “The Duke [also called the elector] of Brandenburgh, with his Duchess, and two brothers, with the great officers and ladies of his court, were with the army. He is very short and crooked as to his person; he is about the age of thirty; his face, indeed, is fine and comely. His brothers, prince Charles and prince Philip are both tall and well shap’d gentlemen. His court was exceeding splendid. Besides his guards, he hath an hundred French Gentlemen Refugees, all well mounted and clad in scarlet, with a broad gold lace on the seams, every one looking like a captain; they are called his Grand Musqueteers, and always attend his person.”
- ↑ The Battle of Montesclaros was often called the Battle of Villa Yiciosa.
- ↑ “December 18, about 3 in the afternoon, his Highness the Prince of Orange came to St. James’s, attended by Monsieur Schomberg, and a great number of the Nobility and Gentry, and was entertained with a joy and concourse of the people that appeared free and unconstrained, and all the bells in the City were rung and bon-fires in every street.” — "History of the Desertion,” p. 107.
- ↑ The first compiler of the list of Masters-General must have written “Duc de Schomberg” indistinctly. Hence the name appears in some lists as “David Schomberg.”
- ↑ Boyer’s History of William III.; Story’s Wars of Ireland.
- ↑ The received opinion has been that all the privates in Schomberg’s Horse were gentlemen. But the lists in the British Museum establish this fact only, that some gentlemen served as privates in it, as was the case in each of the other French Refugee regiments.
- ↑ Despatch, No. 4.
- ↑ Sir John Dalrymple in an Appendix of his “Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland,” gives extracts from these Despatches. These (in the original French, the spelling only being modernized) I shall transcribe into the Appendix of this volume. Each Despatch shall be numbered for the purpose of comparison with the translations quoted in the text.
- ↑ Despatch, No. 8.
- ↑ Despatch, No. 9.
- ↑ Despatch, No. 3.
- ↑ Reid’s “History of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland,” vol. ii., p. 375.
- ↑ An Historical Essay upon the Loyalty of the Presbyterians, printed in the year 1713, page 396.
- ↑ Despatch, No. 13.
- ↑ It appears that the Parliament voted him £20,000 in acknowledgment of his devotion in coming over with the Prince of Orange, and this was probably paid to him. The king further promised him £100,000 to be invested by trustees in the purchase of land in England.
- ↑ Despatch, No. 20.
- ↑ A not uncommon (but provoking) blunder was founded upon this by a writer in the “Ulster Journal,” namely, that King William was in Ireland in the summer of 1689 ! !
- ↑ Although Schomberg’s strategy was apparently eclipsed by the king’s system of dash and risk, yet in the following three particulars the great general’s memory was vindicated:—
(1.) As to the notion that the Irish were contemptible foes, over whom victory might be obtained by one impetuous rush. The king’s rush upon Limerick failed.
(2.) As to his reports against English officers intent upon plunder only. An officer had been warned of the secret sortie out of Limerick of the detachment which intercepted and destroyed the king’s siege train of artillery, but did not attend to the warning, because he was engrossed with securing some cattle as booty.
(3.) Count Solmes was Schomberg’s favoured rival for the chief command. Schomberg thought him unfit for the command of a division. In 1692 the battle of Steenkerk justified Schomberg’s estimation of him.
- ↑ Colonel Barré, M.P., quoted the words thus:— “Au devoir, mes enfants; voila vos ennemis.”
- ↑ A correspondent sends me some of the stanzas of the song named “Boyne Water” (the old version):—
“Both horse and foot prepared to cross,
Intending the foe to batter;
But brave Duke Schomberg he was shot,
While venturing over the water.When that King William he perceived
The brave Duke Schomberg falling,
He reined his horse with a heavy heart,
To the Enniskilleners calling:—‘What will ye do for me brave boys?
See yonder men retreating;
Our enemies encouraged are;
But English Drums are beating.’He said: ‘Be not in such dismay
For the loss of one commander;
For God must be our King this day,
And I’ll be General under.’- ****
The Church’s foes shall pine away
With churlish-hearted Nabal;
For our Deliverer came this day
Like valiant Zerubbábel.” - ↑ Graham’s History (1689 to 1691), p. 368.