George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham

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George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (28 August 1592 – 23 August 1628) was a favourite of King James I and VI of England and Scotland, and one of the most rewarded royal courtiers in all history. (His surname is pronounced "Villers".)

Contents 1 Early life 2 Court life 3 Marriage 4 Foreign affairs 4.1 War with Hapsburg Austria, France, and Spain 4.2 Death 5 In fiction 6 Family 7 References

[edit] Early life

He was born in Brooksby, Leicestershire in August 1592, the son of the minor noble Sir George Villiers. His mother, Mary, daughter of Anthony Beaumont of Glenfield, Leicestershire, who was left a widow early, educated him for a courtier's life, sending him to France with Sir John Eliot.

Villiers took very well to the training; he could dance well, fence well, and speak a little French. In August 1614 he was brought before the king, in the hope that the king would take a fancy to him.

[edit] Court life

Following Villiers's introduction to James during the King's progress of that year, the King is said to have fallen deeply in love with him, calling Villiers his 'sweet child and wife.' Villers reciprocated this love and wrote to James: "I naturally so love your person, and adore all your other parts, which are more than ever one man had" and "I desire only to live in the world for your sake". Villiers gained support from those opposed to the existing favourite, Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset. When Somerset was disgraced after the Overbury affair, his position was rapidly taken by Villiers.

Under the King's patronage he prospered greatly. Villiers was knighted in 1615 as a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and was rapidly advanced through the Peerage: he was created Baron Whaddon and Viscount Villiers in 1616, Earl of Buckingham in 1617, Marquess of Buckingham in 1618 and finally Earl of Coventry and Duke of Buckingham in 1623. After the reductions in the Peerage that had taken place during the Tudor period, this left Buckingham as the highest-ranking subject outside the Royal Family.

[edit] Marriage

He married the daughter of the 6th Earl of Rutland, Lady Katherine Manners, later suo jure Baroness de Ros, on 16 May 1620 despite the objections of her father. Buckingham was happy to grant valuable royal monopolies to her family. Parliament began an investigation into misuse of the monopolies in 1621 and Buckingham was quick to side with Parliament to avoid action being taken against him.

[edit] Foreign affairs

In 1623 Buckingham accompanied Charles I, then Prince of Wales, to Spain for marriage negotiations regarding the Infanta Maria. The negotiations had long been stuck but it is believed that Buckingham's crassness was key to the total collapse of agreement; the Spanish Ambassador asked Parliament to have Buckingham executed for his behaviour in Madrid; but Buckingham gained popularity by calling for war with Spain on his return. He headed further marriage negotiations but when in 1624 the betrothal to Henrietta Maria of France was announced the choice of a Catholic was widely condemned. Buckingham's popularity suffered further when he was blamed for the failure of the von Mansfeld expedition to recover the Palatinate (1625). But when the Duke of York became King Charles I, Buckingham was the only man to maintain his position from the court of James.

Buckingham led an expedition to repeat the actions of Sir Francis Drake; seize the main Spanish port at Cádiz and burn the fleet in its harbour. Though his plan was tactically sound, landing further up the coast and marching the militia army on the city, the troops were ill equipped, ill disciplined and ill trained. Coming upon a warehouse filled with wine, they simply got drunk, and the attack was called off. The English Army briefly occupied a small port further down the coast, before taking back to ship.

This was followed by Buckingham leading the Army and the Navy to sea, to intercept an anticipated Spanish silver fleet from Mexico and Spanish Latin America. This never materialised as the Spanish were forewarned by their intelligence and easily avoided the expected ambush. With supplies running out, and men dying and sick from starvation and disease the fleet limped home, embarrassed.

Buckingham then negotiated with the then French regent, Cardinal Richelieu, for English ships to aid Richelieu in his fight against the French Protestants (Huguenots), in return for French aid against the Spanish occupying the Palatinate. This aid never materialised, and Parliament was disgusted and horrified at English Protestants fighting French Protestants. It only fuelled their fears of crypto-Catholicism at Court.

[edit] War with Hapsburg Austria, France, and Spain

When Parliament attempted to impeach him for the failure of the Cádiz expedition (1625), the King had the house dissolved in August before they could put Buckingham on trial. This prompted Buckingham to declare war on France, taking him into conflict with the Bourbons of France and the Hapsburgs of Spain and Germany, by far the two most powerful dynasties in Europe.

[edit] Death

In 1627 Buckingham then led another failure to try to aid the Huguenots besieged at La Rochelle in France, losing over 4000 men out of a force of 7000. While organising a second attempt in 1628 he was stabbed and killed on August 23rd at Portsmouth by John Felton, a naval officer who held a personal grudge against him. Felton was hanged in November and Buckingham was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Buckingham's tomb bears a Latin inscription translating: "The Enigma of the World".

[edit] In fiction

A fictionalised Buckingham is one of the characters in Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, which paints him as a lover of Anne of Austria and deals with his assassination by Felton. In Arturo Pérez-Reverte's novel, El capitán Alatriste, Buckingham appears briefly while on his expedition to Spain in 1623 with Charles I. He is also a central character in a novel by Philippa Gregory, Earthly Joys.

[edit] Family

Buckingham's daughter, Lady Mary Villiers, was the wife of the Royalist 1st Duke of Richmond. Richmond was the grandson of the 1st Duke of Lennox who was of the Lennox line (prominent in the Auld Alliance as Seigneurs d'Aubigny) of the Royal Stuarts, as was King James I because of his grandfather, the 4th Earl of Lennox.

[edit] References

• Roger Lockyer, Buckingham, the Life and Political Career of George Villiers, First Duke of Buckingham, 1592-1628 (Longman, 1981).
• Paul Bloomfield, Uncommon People. A Study of England's Elite (London: Hamilton, 1955) (about the descendants of George Villiers).
• Some text modified from public domain 11th Edition Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1911

Political offices
Preceded by: The Earl of Worcester	Master of the Horse 1616–1628	Succeeded by: The Earl of Holland
Preceded by: The Earl of Nottingham	Lord High Admiral 1619–1628	Succeeded by: 'In Commission' (First Lord: The Earl of Portland)
Preceded by: The Lord Zouche	Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports 1625–1628	Succeeded by: The Earl of Suffolk
Honorary Titles
Preceded by: The Baron Ellesmere	Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire 1616–1628	Succeeded by: The Earl of Montgomery
Preceded by: Sir Francis Fortescue	Custos Rotulorum of Buckinghamshire 1617–1628	Succeeded by: The Earl of Bridgewater
Preceded by: The Lord Wotton	Lord Lieutenant of Kent 1620	Succeeded by: The Duke of Lennox
Preceded by: The Earl of Exeter	Custos Rotulorum of Rutland 1623–1628	Succeeded by: The Lord Noel
Legal Offices
Preceded by: The Earl of Shrewsbury	Justice in Eyre north of the Trent 1616–1619	Succeeded by: The Earl of Rutland
Preceded by: The Earl of Nottingham	Justice in Eyre south of the Trent 1625–1628	Succeeded by: The Earl of Pembroke
Peerage of England
New Title New Creation	Duke of Buckingham 1623–1628	Succeeded by: George Villiers
	Marquess of Buckingham 1618–1628
	Earl of Buckingham 1617–1628
	Viscount Villiers 1616–1628