James Fitz-James Stuart, 2nd Duke of Berwick

James Francis (Diego Francisco) Fitz-James Stuart, (Saint Germain en Laye, France, 21 October 1696 - Naples, Italy, 2 June, 1738, aged 42). Twice a Consort Duke and 3 times a Consort Marquis by his Spanish marriage in 1716. Inheritor of British and Spanish nobility titles in 1734 when his father was killed in battle in Petersbourg. 2nd Duke of Berwick, 2nd Earl of Tinmouth, 2nd Baron Bosworth, 2nd duque de LIRIA y XÉRICA , Grandee of Spain, 1st class (1716), Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, 29 September 1714 . Colonel of the Irish Regiments of Spain. Field Marshal, February 1724. Embassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in Russia December 1726- 1730 under Emperor Peter II of Russia, Knight of the Russian Order of Saint Andrew (28 March 1728), Knight of the Russian Order of Saint Alexander Nevsky, Knight of the Garter by the pretending King of England James Stuart on 3 April 1727, Embassador in Vienna near the Holy Roman Emperor, (1730 - 1733),Charles VI of Austria, (October 1, 1685 – H. R. E., 1711 - October 20, 1740), Embassador in the Kingdom of Naples, (1733 - 1738). Lieutenant General of the Spanish Royal Armies. Deceased in Naples, 2 June 1738.

His mother was the widow, with one previous child, the 2nd Earl of Lucan, of Irish noble Patrick Sarsfield, 1st Earl of Lucan, (circa 1650 - killed in the Battle of Landen in 1693] . This husband, Patrick Sarsfield , Irish Jacobite, was educated at a French Military College.

Born as Lady Honora de Burgo, (1675 - 1698, aged 23), or, Honora de Burgh, second daughter of Irishman William Burke, (d. 1687), the seventh Earl of Clanricarde. Honora was a female name not uncommon for people from the Burke or the Walshingam families.

She married in the Royal Chapel at Saint Germain-en-Laye, France his father James on March 26th 1695, i.e., the Royal Scottish bastard known as James FitzJames, the 1st Duke of Berwick.

Unfortunately, she died at Pezenas, in the Languedoc, South of France, on the 16th January, 1698 when her new baby was less than 18 months old.

His father had to marry again, having thus many younger step brothers and stepsisters, 12, the first male being the origine of the French Dukes of Fitzjames, title extinguished in 1967.

Marriage and descent

On 31 December 1716, the Dowager High Spanish Nobility woman named Catalina Ventura Colón de Portugal y Ayala-Toledo , (14 July 1690 - married 15 August 1709, aged 19 - married again 31 December 1716, aged 26, to 20 year old "Fitz-James Stuart" - 3 October 1739, aged 49).

Catalina Ventura, 9th Duquesa de Veragua, was by then the orphaned daughter of Pedro Manuel Colon de Portugal y de la Cueva,(25th December, 1651 - 9 September 1710). She was thus, the sister of Pedro Nuño Colón de Portugal y Ayala-Toledo, (Madrid 17 October 1676 - married 17 April 1702, aged 26 - Madrid, 4 July 1733), 8th Duke of Veragua.

Don Pedro Nuño sister, Catalina Ventura, did got the title of 9th Duchess of Veragua in spite of him having two boys and one daughter, because the three children of Pedro Nuño, (Who got the title of Marquis of Jamaica), died before the end of 1714.

Catalina Ventura must have been the 9th Duchess of Veragua only after 1733, when her childless brother Pedro Nuño died. Many of her family titles, including the Dukedom "de la Vega de Santo Domingo", (actual Dominican Republic in the Caribbean Sea), went however, through High Court disputes, to the Colón de Larreategui family in 1787.

Her husband, Spanish Duke of Liria and Jérica, titles of 1707, was thus "Consort Duke" of Veragua" and "de la Vega" since 1733, besides 4 or titles of Marquess Consort, several Earldoms and so on, and 2nd Duke of Berwick after 1734 when his british born but politically exiled father died in battle at Philippsburg, (near Karlsruhe, in the German "länder" of Baden-Württemberg), during the War of the Polish Succession .

From this marriage between the French-born Diego Francisco , (James Francis according to british genealogists which does no translate right) and Catalina Ventura, was born the second male, reaching adult age, named as Jacobo Francisco Eduardo Fitz-James y Colón de Portugal (28 December 1718 - married on 26th July 1738 to a Spanish noble woman from the "De Silva" family - Valencia, 30 September, 1785).

The mother of this Maria Teresa De Silva y Haro, born after 1712, was however 11th duquesa de Alba de Tormes, 8th duquesa de Huéscar, 9th marquesa del Carpio, 4th duquesa de Montoro, 8th condesa and 6th duquesa de Olivares, Grandee of Spain, etc. (born 18 September 1691, + 1755).

It is through this "remotely monitored" unexpected match that the actual Spanish family of the "Fitz-James Stuart" is probably through the actual 18th Duchess of Alba, Cayetana II, and from as late as the first quarter of the XIX Cantury the European family hoarding more nobility titles "'of the World, never mind any ruling Kings or Queens.

Nor famous politician Sir Winston Churchill, neither exiled and prosecuted Scottish Royal Stuarts could ever dream on the actual consequences of their ancestors frolickins.

From this marriage between the 3rd Duke of Berwick and this "De Silva" would come as the 4th Duke of Berwick, Liria and Jerica, between other titles, Carlos Genaro, an only child, born 25th March 1752 who will marry in 1771, Carolina Augusta, Prinzessin zu Stolberg-Gedern. Besides, two further males, (Pedro de Alcántara, (1720 - 1790), and Ventura or Buenaventura, (1724 - ????)) and one female, (Maria Guadalupe, (1725 - 1744), married but without succession, managed to reach adult ages and some comfortable wealth while bearing the "Spanish" family name "Fitz-James Stuart" y Colón de Portugal, too.

Winning a throne for the Queen Consort of Spain, (1733 - 1738)

The first wife of Felipe V of Spain was María Luisa Gabriela of Savoy, (1688 - 1714, aged 26), the mother of the brief Louis I of Spain and Ferdinand VI of Spain. She was the daughter of the Duke of Savoy Vittorio Amedeo II, (Torino,14 May, 1666 - Moncalieri (Torino), 31 October 1732). He first became king of Sicily (1713-1718), a territory controled by Spaniards since the beginnings of the XIV Century till that year of 1713 marking the European Truce of Utrecht, but he was forced to exchange this title and instead became king of Sardinia (1720-1730).

Some hot ashes of former European Conflicts could however be used to rearrange part of the European political map. The death on 1 February 1733 of the elected King of Poland Augustus II of Saxony, formerly ousted by Tsar Peter I of Russia at the Battle of Poltava prompted former Polish King Stanisław Leszczyński, elected in 1703, to try to be elected again, as usual for several centuries, by the Polish Parliament.

A new East European political faction wished to participate also in the coming banquet: Russia. The death of Peter I of Russia in 1725, of his common law wife accepted as Ruling Empress Catherine I of Russia in 1727, of the grand son of Peter I, Peter II of Russia in 1730 aged 15, prompted the way to new "westernized boyars" running the bowels of Imperial Russia to project Russia, first towards the West and then towards the East, followed by expanding towards the South at the expenses of the, mainly muslim, technologically retarded Ottoman Empire.

Thus, Empress Anna Ivanovna, (7 February [O.S. 28 January] 1693, Moscow – 28 October [O.S. 17 October] 1740), Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI,(October 1, 1685 – October 20, 1740), King of Bohemia (as Karel II) and Hungary (as Károly III) from 1711 to 1740), brother in law of the executed father of young child previous Emperor Peter II of Russia, and King Frederick William I of Prussia, (August 14, 1688 – May 31, 1740), were willing and ready to dispute the former bravades of King Augustus II of Saxony towards formerly elected (and bullied) King of Poland Stanisław Leszczyński, father-in-law of King Louis XV. Obviously, there were no wishes in central Europe, with Christian Orthodox Russians, Lutheran Swedish, Protestant Prussians and Catholic Austrians of seen Spanish - French Bourbons prasying around the Catholic Kingdom of Poland.

Therefore, Russians, Austrians and Prussians decided together to back the candidacy of Emmanuel of Portugal for the Polish throne.

But Felipe V of Spain was an uncle of the King of France Louis XV, and moreover he has got children from his first marriage to a daughter of the ruler of the Duchy of Savoy, the Alpine Territories now making a part of, either the actual Italy and the actual France.

The Spanish Bourbon King Philip V had been recognized by Western European powers as a King of Spain in the Truce of 1713, known as Treaty of Utrecht, in a 11 years war known as Spanish Succession War.

Imperial Spain has got thus "the privilege", through plenty of killed soldiers and wastes of money, of having a ruling Bourbon family King, losing Gibraltar and the Island of Menorca to the British (Hannoverian) Crown, the "Spanish Netherlands" to the Protestant Crown of Holland, the over two centuries of rule on the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily and the Italian Duchies of Parma, Modena and Milan between other things. Further Irish Catholic Nobility from Great Britain, had been granted the Central American Black Slaves Trade, (to save their souls while working as hard as possible in the Caribbean sugar cane and cotton fields nonetheless).

The new Portuguese dinasty of "Braganza" since the portuguese "independence from Spain" in 1640 was getting connected again through some arranged marriages but things went slowly.

The new Spanish Bourbon King King could be described today as someone with bipolar syndrome, luckily surrounded by energetic, (and sometimes severe) noble woman and war skilled generals and field marshals, including some of the best flowers of the Foreign European royalty and nobility. In 1724 he had felt he had to pass the crown to his 17 year old Luis I of Spain but the young boy-king died a few months later.

His second wife after the Truce of Utrecht of 1713, Elizabeth of Parma, was an energetic daughter, her face ravaged by small-pox, of Duke Odoardo II Farnese. She was loving, sexually faithful, very ambicious and very patient with his mentally crippled husband, the new King.

She saw the possibility of getting back or consolidating the then Austrian - run Kingdom of Naples, the Savoy - run Kingdom of Sicily, the Island of Sardinia, perhaps the secure british stronghold of Minorca, either "manu military" or through diplomatic bargaining, as well as assuring the international protection of "her" Duchies of Parma, Piacenza and Modena and wathever could be useful to give her children, begotten with the ailing King, somewhere to rule.

It will appear later that the plausible next heir, begotten from his first marriage, Ferdinand VI of Spain, was also plagued by mental disease but was lucky enough, too, as his father, to count with the moral dimension of more or less loyal aborigines and many of his inmigrated foreign courtisans, too.

British - French - Spanish "Fitz-James Stuart" was but one of her patiently chiseled jewels to achieve her purposes. In the books mentioned below, descriptions on the August 1717, 1718 and 1719, battles and naval actions in Italy "to get back" Naples, (under Austrian new ruling) and Sicily , (under Savoy Duchy new ruling) are described, the resulting Kingdom being called then "Kingdom of the Two Sicilies".

The Duke of Savoy, former father in law of King Philip V of Spain was "given" by the Spaniards the Island of Sardinia as some sort of compensation, and the Austrians, who were busy against the Turks, Austro-Turkish War (1716–18), with his very efficient French - Savoyard General, Prince Eugene of Savoy, cousin of the Savoy Duke, brought into discussions about getting influences, if capable, around the Nord Italian Regions regions of Milan, Torino, and Venise by the Spaniards.

One of the main military leaders was Flemish-Spanish Catholique General Jean François de Bette, Marquess of Lede, (Brussels, December 6, 1672 - Madrid, January 11, 1725), a Belgian military commander in Spanish service from the Eighteenth century. He was the lord of Lede in Flanders, which had become a marquessate in 1633. Born in the Spanish Netherlands, he served the Spanish Crown for most of his life, as a Commander-General of Aragon and Majorca, becoming in 1703 a Knight of the Golden Fleece being later a president of the Spanish War Council. He was victorious in the Battle of Milazzo, (1718), and the Battle of Francavilla, (1719) being also Viceroy of Sicily during this short occupation of the island. Moreover, in 1720-1721, he led a successful expedition to lift the siege of Ceuta by Moroccan Sultan Moulay Ismail . His succesion line with the Princess de Croy-Roeulx, Anna Maria Louise Charlotte, was extinguished with their only son, Emmanuel Ferdinand Francois Joseph de Bette, (1724-1792), who died without heirs.

Duke Diego Francisco Fitz-James Stuart, aged 30 or so, was sent from 1727 to 1730 to Russia when the Emperor - boy Peter II of Russia "ruled" there.

He took with him the remarcable Irishman Ricardo Wall, Richard Wall, (1694-1778), who became in due time a Minister for Foreign Affairs and leader of the government of Spain in 1754, under ailing mentally ill Ferdinand VI of Spain, a post which he held for nine years, under two successive Kings, namely, his step brother, a "Farnese" sibling, Charles III of Spain, formerly Duke of Parma and later Charles VII, King of Naples till the death of his ailing step brother, Ferdinand VI whereby he became King of Spain in 1759.

From 1730 to 1733 both men went to Vienna and from 1733 till his death in 1738 to the "recuperated" Kingdom of Naples, served in plate for her first male son, King Charles VII, King of Naples, later, the wise, reasonable and great Bourbon King Charles III of Spain.

Therefore Elizabeth Farnese, Duchess of Parma, not only "cleaned", somehow, the decaying French Bourbons blood through her genes but brought back some of the "lost territories" for a long while, (some 80 years or so). In exchange she even managed to get her son Charles married to a daughter of the elected King of Poland Augustus III, the "Strong" .

Charles III of Spain wife is frequently known as Maria Amalia of Saxony , ( Dresden, 24 November, 1724 - Buen Retiro, Madrid, 27 September, 1760, aged 35 afyer 13 pregnancies). She married on 19 June 1738, aged 13, Charles VII, King of Naples, later King Charles III of Spain, faithful to her memory even as a widower, according to the Venetian adventurer and women lover Giacomo Casanova .

To get all this, Chales III of Spain mother took advantage, both military and diplomatic, of the European Conflict known as War of the Polish Succession, fought in Russia, Lithuania, the actual Belarus, parts of Germany and in Italy.

This conflict, rather unknown in many secondary school programms till now in West Europe, is well covered in Wikipedia.

In general, thanks to this conflict, Russians acquired territories through their interventions, Austrians lose quite a few territories also at the hands of Russians and Germanic States as well as the Italian based Spanish "conquests".

The giving over in his claims, in 1736, of Stanisław I Leszczyński, (October 20, 1677 – February 23, 1766), father in law of the King of France Louis XV, led famous Michał Serwacy Wiśniowiecki, in Lithuanian: Mykolas Vyšnioveckis, (1680–1744), who was a Polish-Lithuanian szlachcic of ruthenian origin, to be rewarded:

the new elected king Augustus III of Poland, (Dresden, 17 October 1696 - Dresden, 5 October, 1763), father in law of the later King of Spain, Charles III, made him, again, the Grand Hetman (commander-in-chief) of Lithuania.

Broadly speaking, by the middle of the 18th Century with Denmark losing Norway to Sweden, with Sweden "losing" Finland or "Courland", around the actual Latvia regions, to Russia and with Russia consolidating positions in the Baltic Sea, and coveting the Caucasic lands around the Black Sea, associated by "suzerainty" truces or just plainly conquered by the decaying Ottoman Empire, the European kettle was brewing troubles for no less than 2 centuries ahead.

Nearly 100 Years of Germanic Women Marriages And Power In Russia during the XVIII Century, An Overview

Ruling Empress of Russia Yekaterina Alexeyevna, Catherine I, i.e. Martha Elena Scowronska, (April 15, 1684 – Sole Ruling Empress 1725 - May 17, 1727) was at that a Swedish citizen from the Livonia East Baltic sea side.

Her eldest daughter, born out of wedlock with Tsar Peter I was known as Anna Petrovna, (27 January, 1708, Moscow – 4 March 1728, aged 20, d. from childbirth having the later brief Tsar of Russia Peter III, Kiel, Germany). She married in 1721, aged 13, Karl Friedrich, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, (April 30, 1700-June 18, 1739, aged 39), a nephew of childless, and troublesome to the Russians, Charles XII of Sweden, (17 June, 1682 – 30 November 1718, aged 36).

She was the mother of the supposedly next Duke of Holstein, named Peter, better known as Tsar Peter III

Meanwhile, Anna Petrovna younger sister was the Ruling Empress of Russia from 1741 to 1762, known as Elizabeth Petrovna, (December 29, 1709 – January 5, 1762) .

Under her rule, Russia took part into the War of Austrian Succession, (1740–1748) and the Seven Years' War (1756 – 1763).

This Empress, was the aunt of the assassinated Ruling Tsar, (Tsar for only 6 months), Peter III, (February 21, 1728 – called to Russia by her aunt the Empress Yelisaveta in 1742, aged 14, around the time he was declared legal heir to the Crown of Sweden by the (unaware) Swedish Parliament in 1742 - July 17, 1762, aged 34).

Unfortunate Tsar Peter III, happened to be married to the person formally known for the next 34 years, in the World Chancelleries, as Dowager Empress of Russia, Catherine II the Greatof Russia,Екатерина II Великая, Yekaterina II Velikaya; 2 May [O.S. 21 April] 1729 – 17 November [O.S. 6 November] 1796).

The real name, changed by the Russian Orthodox Church when they got married, of the person described as Empress Catherine II of Russia, "The Great", (Velikiya in Russian), is, and was, Sophia Augusta Frederica, (later Catherine II the Great), daughter of Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst and Johanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp.

Further, to cover this survey on the Romanov dinasty links at that time, Germanic - Russian Princess Anna of Mecklenburg- Schwerin, (Rostock, Germany, (18 December, 1718 - in confinement and/or prison, 18th March 1746, while giving birth to her 5th baby), described as Anna Leopoldovna by the Russians, whose mother was Catherine Ivanovna of Russia, sister of the deceased Empress of Russia Anna Ivanovna, (7 February [O.S. 28 January] 1693, Moscow – 28 October [O.S. 17 October] 1740), had married in St. Petersbourg, since 14 July 1739, Germanic Duke Anton Ulrich of Brunswick- Wolfenbüttel, (deceased as an exiled prisoner in Kholmogory, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. 19 March, 1776).

The first male son from this mainly Germanic marriage, (a Brunswick -Wolfenbüttel and a Mecklenburg - Schewerin] was named Ivan and adopted by his aunt, Empress Anne of Russia as early as 5th October 1740, and proclaimed inheritor, with the name of Ivan VI of Russia, of the Russian Crown by his aunt, the childless Russian Empress Anna Ivanovna above mentioned .

We will see now what happened to young Tsar Ivan VI :

23 days later, on 28 October 1740, Russian Emprees Anna Ivanovna of Russia died aged 47 from a kidney problem.

Empress, (for some 10 years), Anne, had set up before dying, Ernst Johann von Biron, Duke of Courland, (23 November [O.S. 13 November] 1690 – 29 December [O.S. 18 December] 1772), as a Tutor and Regent.

Then, the mainly Germanic Princess, more known today to the Russians as Anna Leopoldovna, who had become Great Princess of Russia, will oust Duke Ernst Johann von Biron two weeks later, on 8th November 1740.

However, by December 1741, 13 months later, it was the turn to be a Ruling Empress for the so called Elizabeth I of Russia,Yelizaveta Petrovna, (Russian: Елизаве́та (Елисаве́т) Петро́вна) (December 29, 1709 – Empress December 1741 - January 5, 1762 (New Style); December 18, 1709 – December 25, 1761, (Old Style)).

Tsar Peter III, former Duke of Holstein, formerly approved by the Swedish Parliament as King of Sweden, the Tsar or Emperor of Russia for 6 months, had been assasinated around 12 July 1762, aged 34. He was dressed for his burial as a Holstein-Gottorp hussar gard, albeit parts of Holstein were by then under new Danish rule.

Ivan VI Antonovich of Russia, was assasinated inSchlusselburg, after staying there as an isolated human being and Prince since 1756, on 16 July 1764, aged 24.

There are irrelevant academic disputes on this date of July. He had been displaced from the Russian throne aged 6 months, remained alone "retained" for many years and two months later, without male antagonists, on 22nd September 1764, in Moscow, no Saint Petersburg city, Sophia Augusta Federica von Zerbst - Anhalt, now Catherine II of Russia was recognized and crowned by the Russian Orthodox Church, at Uspenki Cathedral, as the new ruler of the ever growing Russian Empire for the next 34 years.

References

A. PAZ y MELIÁ. "Conquista de Nápoles y Sicilia y relación de Moscovia, por el Duque de Berwick. Precede una noticia de la vida y escritos del autor por A. Paz y Meliá". 468 pages, Madrid (1890). Imprenta y Fundición de M.Tello. Impresor de Cámara de S. M.

Duque de LIRIA y JÉRICA, "Diario de Viaje a Moscovia", edit. by A.L. ENCINAS, I. ARRANZ, M. RODTRIGUEZ, ISBN: 978-84-7813-324-4, Ed. MIRAGUANO, April 2008.

*http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Luisa_Gabriela_de_Saboya

*http://indigo.ie/~wildgees/honora3.htm

*http://www.tcd.ie/CISS/mmspain.php.

Research Group on Irish and Spanish Military Migration to Spain by Professor Ciaran Brady, Dr. Declan Downey and Dr. Oscar Morales e-mail at tcd (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland). February 2008.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_Courland.

Notices on the Lithuanian - Polish - Russian background of the territories known as "Duchy of Courland".