William Carr Beresford
Beresford, William Carr
Born Oct. 2, 1768; died Jan. 8, 1854, in Bedgebury, Kent. English general.
In 1808, Beresford entered the service of the Anglo-Portuguese forces on the Iberian Peninsula. He was a Portuguese marshal and commander in chief of the Portuguese army from 1809. After his triumph over the army of the French marshal Soult at La Albuera (1811), he became the actual ruler of Portugal. In 1820, after setting off for Brazil for negotiations with the Portuguese king Joāo VI, he was not allowed back into Portugal, from which the English had been expelled as a result of a revolution.