Name Charles Fitz-James | Died 1787, Paris, France | |
Charles de Fitz-James, Duke of Fitz-James (4 November 1712 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye – 22 March 1787 at his hotel particulier, Paris) was a French general, descended from the British House of Stuart. He rose to become a peer and marshal of France.
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Early life
He was the son of James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick, who was in turn the illegitimate son of James II of Great Britain. He was known from birth as the "count of Fitz-James". When his elder brother Henri de Fitz-James was dismissed and his younger brother Francois de Fitz-James took holy orders, Charles was made governor and lieutenant-general of Limousin on 28 December 1729, aged only 17. In 1730 he joined the musketeers, on 31 March 1732 he was given a commission to command a company in the Montreval cavalry regiment, and in 1733 he was put in command of an Irish cavalry regiment, which was renamed the Fitz-James regiment after him.
1733 also saw Europe's peace broken for the first time in twenty years after the death of Augustus, king of Poland. A French army under Charles's father invaded Germany, whilst Charles saw his first active service at the head of his regiment at the sieges of Kehl (1733) and Philippsbourg (1734). He was standing next to his father when the latter was killed by a cannonball and was splattered with his blood and brains. Inheriting his father's dukedom and becoming a peer of France, Charles continued serving with the French army on the Rhine under the orders of Marshal de Coigny from 1735 until the peace of Vienna in 1738. In 1735 he also became one of the first French Freemasons in the Bussy Lodge.
War of the Austrian Succession
Charles VI's death in 1740 triggered another European war, with France backing the elector of Bavaria's claims to the imperial throne. In 1741. In 1741 a French army of 40,000 men crossed the Rhine at Fort-Louis, under the orders of the Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, whilst another army the same size crossed the Meuse at the same time - Charles served in the latter as a brigadier, under the orders of Jean-Baptiste Francois des Marets, marquis de Maillebois. He took part in most of the war's battles and also served in Belle-Isle's army at the siege of Prague and the retreat which followed.
Returning to France in July 1743, he ended his campaign in Basse-Alsace serving under marshal de Noailles. In 1744 he was promoted to marechal-de-camp and fought in the king's army at that rank, commanding the siege works at the 1745 siege of Tournay, fighting at the French victory at Fontenoy and serving at the sieges of Oudenarde and Dendermonde. In 1746 he joined the French army in Flanders under the marshal de Saxe, covering the sieges of Mons, Saint-Guilhain and Charleroi and serving at the sieges of Namur (1746) and the victory at Rocourt.
At the battle of Lawfeld - bloodier than Fontenoy - opened France's 1747 campaign in the Netherlands. The Duke of Fitz-James fought there before joining the sieges of Bergen-op-Zoom (1747) and Lowendahl. He also fought at the siege of Maestricht when peace was signed between France, Britain and the Netherlands in 1748. Hostilities were barely over when, on 10 May 1748, the duke of Fitz-James was promoted to lieutenant general. He was also made a peer of France and knight of the orders of the king (received 2 February 1756).