A major battle of the War of the Spanish Succession that took place in the Bavarian village of Blenheim on the north bank of the River Danube. John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, commanded a British and Austrian army that defeated the French forces of Louis XIV. Blenheim Palace, the Duke’s seat at Woodstock in Oxfordshire, England, was named after this victory. Begun in 1705, the building was designed by the English architects Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. The park was laid out by ‘Capability’ Brown.