Nicolaas Schmelzing
Nicolaas Schmelzing (1561 – 8 September 1629) was an Austrian nobleman, Dutch courtier and military commander, lieutenant-governor of the Province of Overijssel during the early 17th century, and President of the Dutch War Council at the successful Siege of 's-Hertogenbosch in the Eighty-Years War, during which he was killed. Life Nicolaas Schmelzing was born in 1561 at Castle Zwickledt in Wernstein, Austria, as Niklas von Schmelzing, into a family which was raised to the hereditary nobility by Emperor Maximilian II in 1567 for previous services in the Italian Wars. He emigrated in the early 1590s to the Dutch Provinces for religious reasons, and entered the service of the Duke of Nassau. In 1593 he was raised to the position of Rittmeister upon recommendations of the Duke and Maurice of Nassau, and participated in the subsequent cavalry battle at Lippe. In 1616, he was elevated to be Lieutenant-Governor of the province of Overijssel to act as Maurice's deputy, and command all its garrisons. In his memoires, the Prince of Orange later credited Schmelzing for his timely intervention at the Siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, and for the imprisonment of 1,200 Spanish forces under the command of Ambrogio Spinola near the town of Ommen.