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.

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.

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.

When the second Catholic ligue declared war on the crown in opposition to the prospect of the Protestant Navarre inheriting the throne, Schomberg was again tasked with raising mercenaries in the Empire.

Schomberg played a central role in the negotiations for an alliance between Henri and Navarre that established a united front against the ligue.

She was the widow of the ambassador Henri de Clutin and would commission Germain Pilon to build a funerary monument to her former husband in 1580.

[8] In the first civil war that broke out in 1562, Schomberg was aligned with the Protestant rebels, and was entrusted by the prince of Condé with recruiting mercenaries in the Empire.

[12][13] Schomberg began his rise through the court shortly thereafter, receiving appointment as a gentilhomme de la chambre du roi in 1570 and then chambellan in 1571.

[14] With the Spanish Netherlands in rebellion, factions of the French court looked towards a plan for an invasion and partition of the territory during 1571.

[15] By 1572 the risks of this project had become apparent and the crowns support for the Dutch rebels became covert, with a formal war against España off the table.

As an experienced diplomat, he was tasked with soothing the furious anger of the various Protestant princes of the empire to the killing of their co-religionists across France.

[17] Schomberg delivered to the princes he visited the royal narrative that the crown had simply engaged in an extraordinary punishment for some rebels, and that this had no impact on the position of Protestantism in France.

[24] Alongside this responsibility, Schomberg was also to make sure no reiters, who had not been paid by the crown of France, were in the path of their journey.

Reporting back on this, Schomberg was authorised to offer the duke of Zweibrücken the sum of 500,000 livres as a bribe against supporting the rebels against the crown.

[32] The royal reiters were under the command of Schomberg, however the money to pay them off was slow in arriving and he was unable to control the increasingly irate troops.

The ligue hired mercenaries from inside the Empire, in response to which Henri tasked Schomberg with recruiting reiters for the royalist cause.

He was not however able to attain access to the Empire to acquire mercenaries, as Guise occupied the border cities of Toul and Verdun blocking his departure.

[41] With this arrangement agreed, Schomberg was dispatched across the Imperial border alongside De Thou to acquire a large mercenary force of 20,000 men.

Schomberg was among those loyal to Henri III who accepted serving a Protestant king during August 1589, alongside Marshal Biron and the duke of Longueville.

Schomberg commanded forces on Henri's right flank, who faced off against the chevalier d'Aumale a cousin of the deceased duke of Guise and a detachment of Walloons.

Henri recognised the risk though of allowing the deliberations to continue without involving himself in them, and as such he arranged for a conference between members of the ligueur Estates and his own partisans.

The council was composed of four sword nobles, Nevers, Retz, Damville and Schomberg, alongside several secretaries of state and administrative experts.

[53] Upon returning to the king, Henri lamented to him the dire state of the kingdom, but decided not to yield to the Protestant nobles demands.

[55] Schomberg arrived alone at the assembly, and succeeded in defusing some of the anger through the acceptance of a number of articles which would constitute the future Edict of Nantes in an agreement established on 25 July 1597.

[59] The landmark Edict of Nantes in 1598 which granted limited toleration to Protestantism was bitterly resisted by elements of the Catholic elite.

Schomberg argued that Protestants had demonstrated themselves to be loyal servants of the king, he was supported in this argument by the Chancellor Cheverny and Constable Montmorency.