GEORGE VILLIERS, 1ST DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM

'George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham' (28 August 1592 – 23 August 1628) (IPA pronunciation: ) was a favourite of King James I of England and his successor Charles I, and one of the most rewarded royal courtiers in all history.

Contents

Early life

Court life

Marriage

Foreign affairs

War with Hapsburg Austria, France, and Spain

Death

In fiction

Family

References

Early life

He was born in Brooksby, Leicestershire in August 1592, the son of the minor gentry man Sir George Villiers (1550-1604). His mother, Mary (1570 - 1632), 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, Villiers, reputedly "the handsomest-bodied man in all of England," was brought before the king, in the hope that the king would take a fancy to him, diminishing the power at court of then-favourite Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset.

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.' Villiers 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 favorite, 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, Buckingham was left as the highest-ranking subject outside the Royal Family.
In the 1620s Villiers acquired York House, Strand, which, apart from an interlude during the English Civil War remained in the family until George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham sold it to developers for £30,000 in 1672. He made it a condition of the sale that his name and title should be commemorated by George Street, Villiers Street, Duke Street, Of Alley, and Buckingham Street, some of which have survived into the twenty-first century. (Villiers Street runs along the eastern side of Charing Cross railway station).

Marriage

Buckingham 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.

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). However, 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 by seizing the main Spanish port at Cádiz and burning 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 ambush never materialised as the Spanish were forewarned by their intelligence and easily avoided the expected ambush. With supplies running out and men sick and dying from starvation and disease, the fleet limped home, embarrassed.
Buckingham then negotiated with the 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. The aid never materialised, and Parliament was disgusted and horrified at English Protestants fighting French Protestants. The plan only fuelled their fears of crypto-Catholicism at Court. Buckingham himself, believing that the failure of his enterprise was the fault of treachery by Richelieu, formulated an alliance among the churchman's many enemies, a policy which included support for the very Huguenots whom he had recently attacked.

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, putting him into conflict with the Bourbons of France and the Hapsburgs of Spain and Germany, by far the two most powerful dynasties in Europe.

Death

In 1627 Buckingham led another failure: an attempt to aid his new Huguenot allies besieged at La Rochelle in France. He lost over 4000 men out of a force of 7000. While organizing a second campaign he was stabbed and killed at Portsmouth on August 23 1628 by John Felton, an army officer who had been wounded in the earlier military adventure. Felton was hanged in November and Buckingham was buried in Westminster Abbey. His tomb bears a Latin inscription translating: "The Enigma of the World".
The memory of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, is held sacred by the Villiers Club an exclusive dining and debating society at Oxford.

In fiction

A fictionalised Buckingham is one of the characters in Alexandre Dumas, père's ''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''.

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 of the ''Seigneurs d'Aubigny'' Stuarts. His elder son Charles (1626 - 1627) died as an infant and the title was inherited by his younger son George.

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 Britannica, 1911
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