BERWICK, JAMES FITZJAMES, DUKE OF (1670 1734 ), marshal of France, was the natural son of James, duke of York, afterwards James II. of England, by Arabella Churchill (1648-1730), sister of the duke of Marlborough. He was born at Moulins (Bourbonnais) on Aug. 21 1670, and educated in France. He served his first campaign in Hungary under Charles of Lorraine, and was present at the siege of Buda. He then returned to England, was made a colonel of the 8th Foot, and in 1687 was created duke of Berwick, earl of Teignmouth and Baron Bosworth. The revolution forced him to flee to France. He served under James II. in the campaign in Ireland, and was present at the battle of the Boyne. For a short time he was left in Ireland as commander-in-chief, but his youth and inexperience unfitted him for the post. He then took service in the French army, fought under Marshal Luxembourg in Flanders, and took part in the battles of Steinkirk and Neerwinden, at the latter of which he was taken prisoner. He was, however, immediately exchanged for the duke of Ormond, and afterwards served under Villeroi. In 1695 he married the widow of Patrick Sarsfield, who died in 1698. His second marriage, with Anne Bulkeley, took place in 17o°. He served in the campaign of 1702, after which he became naturalized as a French subject. In 1704, he first took command of the French army in Spain, but after one campaign he was replaced by the Marshal de Tesse. In 17o5 he commanded against the Camisards (q.v.) in Languedoc, and when on this expedition he is said to have carried out his orders with remorseless rigour. After his successful expedition against Nice in 1706 he became a marshal of France, and returned to Spain as commander-in-chief of the Franco-Spanish armies. On April 25, 1707, the duke won the great and decisive victory of Almanza, where an Englishman at the head of a French army defeated Ruvigny, earl of Galway, a Frenchman at the head of an English army. The victory established Philip V. on the throne of Spain. Berwick was made a peer of France by Louis XIV., and duke of Liria and of Xereca and lieutenant of Aragon by Philip. Thenceforward Berwick was recognized as one of the greatest generals of his time, and successively com manded in nearly all the theatres of war. From 1709 to 1712 he defended the south-east frontier of France in a series of cam paigns which, unmarked by any decisive battle, were yet models of the art of war as practised at the time. The last great event of the war of the Spanish Succession was the storming of Bar celona by Berwick, after a long siege, on Sept. 1 s 1714. Three years later he was appointed military governor of the province of Guienne, in which post he became intimate with Montesquieu.
In 1718 he again entered Spain with an army; and this time he had to fight against Philip V., the king who owed chiefly to Berwick's courage and skill the safety of his throne. Marshal Berwick advised and conducted the siege of Philippsburg, and was killed by a cannon-shot on June 12 1734. Cool, self-pos sessed and cautious as a general, Marshal Berwick was at the same time not wanting in audacity and swiftness of action. He was a true general of the 18th century, not less in his care for the lives of his men than in his punctiliousness and rigidity in matters of discipline.
The Memoires of Marshal Berwick, revised, annotated and con tinued by the Abbe Hooke, were published by the marshal's grandson in 1778. Montesquieu made many contributions to this.