| Surname: | FitzJames |
| Coat Of Arms: | Arms of the House of FitzJames |
| Type: | Jacobite noble family |
| Parent House: | House of Stuart |
| Country: | Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Scotland, Kingdom of France, Kingdom of Spain, Kingdom of Sicily, Kingdom of Two Sicilies |
| Founder: | James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick |
| Current Head: | Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart y Gómez, 12th Duke of Berwick |
| Founding Year: | 1670 |
| Nationality: | British, Spanish, French (see details) |
| Other Families: | House of Alba House of Silva |
The House of FitzJames Stuart, or simply FitzJames, is a noble house founded by James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick. He was the illegitimate son of James II & VII, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, a monarch of the House of Stuart.[1] After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the 1st Duke of Berwick followed his father into exile, and much of the family's history since then has been in Spain and France, with several members of the family serving in a military capacity.
The house has two main branches:
This branch gained the Spanish title of Duke of Alba after the death in 1802 of the childless María Cayetana de Silva, 13th Duchess of Alba. The branch's ancestral link to the dukedom of Alba was through the 4th Duke of Berwick, whose mother was the granddaughter of the 11th Duchess of Alba.
Upon the death of the 10th Duke of Berwick in 1953, his Spanish titles (including the dukedoms of Alba and of Liria) went to his daughter while the Jacobite dukedom of Berwick went to his nephew (who was already the 19th Duke of Peñaranda de Duero), due to differences between the Spanish and Jacobite succession laws (male-preference primogeniture and agnatic primogeniture respectively).