A Happy Man
JAMES FITZ-JAMES, Duke of Berwick, the son of James II of England and of Arabella Churchill, sister of the first Duke of Marlborough, began his distinguished military career at the age of sixteen, when he fought in the Imperial army against the Turks. At the age of sixty- three, while inspecting an advanced post of the French troops which he was commanding in the War of the Polish Succession, his head was carried off by a cannon ball; his colleague in the command, the eighty-two-year-old Villars, on receiving the news, remarked "Cet homme a toujours ete heureux." There seems to be truth in the aged Marshal's judgment. Though deprived of his own country, Berwick loyally, consistently and with great distinction served another. Indeed, living in an age when for Englishmen loyalty was a most difficult and vexed question, he may well km found a kind of tranquillity in his unswerving obedience to the King of France, and in carrying out the duties of a soldier he retained a dignity that distinguished him from many of the politicians among his fellow countrymen.
His position was certainly an odd one. He was the half-brother of Mary and Anne, and the nephew of Marlborough. He was also the half-brother of the Old Pretender, whom, of course, he regarded as the legitimate King of England. At the same time he was a subject of the King of France and became one of the greatest of his commanders. He frequently fought against his own country- men and even, on one occasion, against his own son, the Duke of Liria, who was in the service of the King of Spain. Some of the letters written at this time by Berwick to Liria and quoted by Sir Charles Petrie, indicate the simple rule of right which seems to have governed the Marshal's conscience. In 1718 he writes from Paris: "God knows how things will go between France and Spain, but always remember that I am a Frenchman and you are a Spaniard. I will do my duty as a loyal subject and one who has the interests of his Sovereign at heart, without any other consideration than my obligation towards the King. You must do the same in respect of your King and in no circumstances act otherwise."
And in another letter some weeks later: "... always obey the King and his ministers, and avoid all intrigue. I am doing the same, and in no circumstances will I get entangled in political matters."
He appears to have followed these guiding principles even with regard to those political intrigues in which he was necessarily involved. For, even if he had wished it, he could scarcely have kept aloof from the Jacobite plots wiiich concerned his half-brother, whom he t ack- pa owledged as James III. And, had he been more like his uncle rlborough not only in military ability but also in political ambition, is possible that the cause of the Stuarts might have triumphed. What the Jacobites needed was an able commander, and the victor of Almanza would have had every qualification for the post. But the English Jacobites also demanded French troops and, at the time when these troops could have been really valuable, they were not available. Later, in the years 1714-16, when James III entreated and commanded his half-brother to take the command in Scotland, Berwick refused on the ground that he was a French subject and could not act without the permission of the Regent who, of course, was unable to grant it. Some critics have regarded this declaration of Berwick's as an obvious excuse, indicating that he had neither faith nor interest in the rebellion of Fifteen; yet, if one considers it in the light of the letters which he wrote later to his son (who, inci- dentally, did join James in Scotland), one will see good reason to believe that Berwick sincerely meant what he said. At the same time it is true that the intrigues of this period are so complex and shifting that, although the conflicting records are expounded with admirable clarity by Sir Charles Petrie, one remains very often con- fused and baffled by what one reads. It is surprising, for example, to find that Berwick showed a particular partiality for Bolingbroke and deeply resented the fact that James, on his return to France, dismissed him. Yet the dismissal would seem fully justified (and particularly so, one would have thought, to a general) if as Sir Charles states, Bolingbroke had "squandered on a mistress the money which he should have used to buy munitions."
It is perhaps in his accounts of Berwick's military actions that Sir Charles Petrie is most illuminating. Here his work forms a most valuable supplement to the studies of Professor Trevelyan and of Sir Winston Churchill. In the delineation of character Sir Charles perhaps suffers from a comparison with these distinguished historians, yet it should be remembered that the great and loyal soldier which Berwick was does not lend himself to any highly coloured treatment. For example in any study of Marlborough strong feelings are aroused and violent argument can be joined on the question of whether the great general was avaricious or economical. Of Berwick Montesquieu writes: "No man ever gave a brighter example of the contempt we ought to have for money," and there is not much that remains to be said. Indeed Montesquieu's panegyric, which is here printed as an appendix, reads, as no doubt it was intended to read, like an extract from one of Plutarch's Lives, and, though it may be sad, it is true that in Plutarch the great rogues are often more interesting than the virtuous. But neither the rogues themselves nor anything of value or interest could exist at all outside the fabric that is created by men of honour and ability, and among such men the Duke of Berwick has no inconsiderable place. REX WARNER
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