Colonel Rekrod

Rekrod is a German leader of mercenaries. He is mentioned in Checkmate.

Titles, Nicknames and Other names

Colonel Rekrod

Role in Novels

Checkmate CM 2.1

Rekrod is mentioned as being too late to help defend Paris against the Spanish army.

Quotation from Dunnett

CM 2.1 The Piedmont troops will take ten days to march here at the minimum: St Laurent’s Swiss and Colonel Rekrod’s levies will take longer. (Vintage p. 102; Kindle loc. 2475)

Role in History

Georg(e) Rekrod was a German military whose life remains mostly obscure. Various sources reveal glimpses of the life of a mercenary leader: he is mentioned only shortly, but frequently, in several accounts of the Schmalkaldic war where he was a colonel under Johann Friedrich Elector of Saxony on the side of the Protestants <ref>Wilhelm Schäfer, Galerie der Reformatoren der christlichen Kirche, ihrer Freunde und Beschützer und ihrer geistlichen und weltlichen Gegner, Meissen 1841, vol. 4, p. 302 read online (in German)</ref>. Before, he had been fighting for France at some point in time, a fact that lost him his fief in Germany.<ref> Veith-Ludwig von Seckendorf, Ausführliche Historie des Luthertums und der heilsamen Reformation, Leipzig 1714, p. 2263 read online (in German)</ref>

In 1555 he fights in Piemont with the Duke de Guise<ref>Mémoires de Messire Martin Du Bellay, seigneur de Langey... (et) Mémoires de Messire Guillaume du Bellay. éd. par René Du Bellay, Paris, 1786, vol. XX, p. 383 read online (in French)</ref> and Piero Strozzi, facing hard times when his soldiers are massacred after an exhausting night march.<ref>Histoire universelle de Jacque-Auguste de Thou depuis 1543 jusqu'en 1607, traduite sur l'édition latine de Londres, London, 1734, vol. 2, pp. 553-554 read online (in French)</ref> He is then sent back with his landsknechts on the order of the King Henri II.<ref> Mémoires de Messire Martin Du Bellay, p. 412</ref> Rekrod joined the French army at Danvilliers (in Luxembourg), moved on to France with his landsknechts and recruited men in Germany for the French service.<ref>Table Générale des matieres de la Collection Universelle des mémoires particuliers relatifs à l’histoire de France, Paris, 1790, vol. 1, p. 227 read online (in French)</ref>

One source mentions his problems in Germany, as the country was already drained of men by the enemy, in particular by the baron Polweiler, or Polvilliers, who recently had raised twenty companies of infantry and several of cavalry for Philip of Spain.<ref>Pierre Remond de Sainte-Albine, Abrégé de l’Histoire Universelle par J. A. de Thou, 1759, vol. 2, p. 187 read online (in French)</ref>

There is no record of his birth or death dates.

References