Gaspard de Schomberg dating history

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Gaspard de Schomberg, comte de Nanteuil (c. –17 March 1599) was a French soldier, courtier, diplomat, statesman and governor during the French Wars of Religion. Of Saxon descent, Gaspard naturalised as French. He began his career during the first French War of Religion, when he fought with the Protestants against the crown, raising mercenaries in the Holy Roman Empire for the prince of Condé. The crown was impressed with his abilities, and co-opted his services, during the third civil war he would fight against the Protestants. In 1570 he was made a gentilhomme de la chambre du roi, and then a Chambellan and in these years he would conduct a series of diplomatic missions to further French foreign policy with the princes of the empire. In 1573 he helped prepare the way for Anjou, travel to his new kingdom, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. When Anjou returned to France as Henri III Schomberg supported him in the civil war he inherited, reporting on the mercenary situation in the empire, and fighting at the Battle of Dormans. His wealth during this period allowed him to take advantage of the Duke of Guise's financial woes, securing for himself the county of Nanteuil-le-Haudoin in 1578 for several hundred thousand livres.