tress Arabella Churchill, the sister of James Churchill,
the duke of Marlborough. He spent very little of his life
in his father and mother’s native country; educated in
France, he attended the Colleges of Juilly, du Plessis, La
Flesche, and Paris. His first military service was fighting
in Hungary under the command of Charles of Lorraine,
and he was present at the battle of Buda (now Buda-
pest, 1686). In 1687, when James was 17, his father cre-
ated him duke of Berwick-upon-Tweed, usually styled
as the duke of Berwick, earl of Teignmouth, and Baron
Bosworth. In 1688, his father named him governor of
Portsmouth and lord lieutenant of Hampshire. In 1688,
James, a Catholic who was not popular in Protestant En-
gland, fled the nation when William of Orange, James’s
Protestant son-in-law, invaded England at the invitation
of Parliament and took the throne as William III. James,
duke of Berwick, also fled to France.
While in France, Berwick formed an army of Ja-
cobites (supporters of James) and invaded Ireland, see-
ing action at Derry, Enniskillen, and Donegal. He also
fought at the Battle of the Boyne (1 July 1690), where,
under the command of Frederick Herman Schomberg,
the Jacobites were decisively defeated by the forces of
William III, though Schomberg was killed in the battle.
James II fled again to France, but he left Berwick be-
hind to continue to fight for control of Ireland. After
a series of minor battles in which Berwick tried to hold
off William III’s forces, England finally won control of
Ireland, and Berwick returned to his father in France.
He then joined the French army, seeing action almost
immediately at the seige of Mons and the battle of Lueze
(19 September 1691). He also fought at the battles of
Steinkirk (3 August 1692) and Neerwinden (29 July
1693; also called the battle of Landen, which was near
Neerwinden). At the latter siege, Berwick was taken pris-
oner by his uncle, General Charles Churchill, brother
to his mother Arabella and to James churchill, duke
of Marlborough. He was taken before King William III
of England, but he escaped punishment when he was
exchanged for the duke of Ormonde.
Returning to service in the French army, Berwick
served under François de Neufville, duc de Villeroi. In
1696, he once again tried to restore his father to the
throne of England, even traveling to London in disguise,
but he was unable to raise support. After seeing action
in Spain, he was later naturalized as a French citizen (17
December 1703). In 1704, he was named as head of the
French army in Spain but was soon replaced and sent
on an expedition to Nice. His success there saw him
promoted to marshal of France (15 February 1706) and
given the official title of duc de Fitzjames. At the side
of King Philip V of Spain he returned to fight the al-
lied army of the English, Portuguese, and Austrians at
Almansa (25 April 1707), where his army, though hope-
lessly outnumbered, defeated Henri de Ruvigny, the earl
of Galway. When Galway moved into Madrid, Berwick’s
forces, joined by King Philip, took them on and defeated
them.
From 1709 to 1712, he conducted a series of cam-
paigns defending the southeast frontier of France, and
then returned to command French forces in Spain. This
led later to another great victory for him at Barcelona
(11 September 1714), in which his forces stormed the
city in the last battle of the War of the Spanish Succes-
sion. For his service to Spain, Philip V granted Berwick
a pension and in April 1717 named him as governor of
Guienne.
In 1733, after several years in the service of the
French and Spanish forces, Berwick, at age 63, com-
manded another French army in a battle against Aus-
tria in the War of the Polish Succession. Marching to
the Rhine River on 12 June 1734, he faced the Austrian
forces at the battle of Philipsbourg (also Philipsburg),
near Württemberg (now in Germany). During the bat-
tle—there is conflict as to the true story—a cannon shot
from either the French or Austrian side hit Berwick and
took off his head. Berwick’s biographer, Sir Charles Pet-
rie, writes:At the beginning of June the investment of Phil-
ipsburg began, and as was his custom Berwick
personally inspected the trenches every morn-
ing. On June 12th he did this in company with
his [second] son, the Duke of FitzJames, and in
the course of his inspection he reached an ad-
vanced point where several French soldiers had
been killed by their own artillery. A sentry had in
consequence been placed near the spot to warn
people of the danger, but he does not appear to
have done so in the case of Berwick. The guns on
both sides opened fire, and a ball carried off the
Marshal’s head, but from which side it came was
never established.Berwick was 64 years old. His body was returned
to Strasbourg, France, and, after being embalmed, wasbeRwick, JAmeS FitzJAmeS, FiRSt Duke oF