George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham ( ; 20 August 1592 – 23 August 1628), was an English courtier and statesman who was a notable patron of the arts. He was a favourite and self-described "lover" of King James VI and I. Buckingham remained at the height of royal favour for the first three years of the reign of James's son, Charles I, until he was assassinated.
Villiers was born in Brooksby, Leicestershire, into a family of minor gentry. His ascent began notably in 1614 when, aged 21, he caught the attention of the King. His achievements include being knighted and climbing the ranks of nobility, eventually becoming the Duke of Buckingham in 1623. Villiers was the last in a succession of handsome young favourites on whom the King lavished affection and patronage. The pair were often accused of sodomy and most historians today believe the relationship was sexual in nature.
Villiers's influence extended beyond the King's favour; he played a significant role in political and military affairs, including the negotiation of royal marriages and leading military expeditions. His tenure as Lord High Admiral and de facto foreign minister was marked by a series of failed military campaigns, such as the ill-fated Cádiz expedition (1625), which damaged his reputation and public image. Buckingham's assassination in 1628 by John Felton, a disgruntled army officer, highlighted the extent of his unpopularity among the public.
Early life
Villiers was born in Brooksby, Leicestershire, on 20 August 1592, the second son of the minor gentleman Sir George Villiers (1550–1606) by his second wife. His mother, Mary (1570–1632), daughter of Anthony Beaumont of Glenfield, Leicestershire, was widowed early. She educated her son for a courtier's life and sent him to travel in France with John Eliot.
Villiers took to the training set by his mother: he could dance and fence well, spoke a little French, and overall became an excellent student. Godfrey Goodman (Bishop of Gloucester from 1624 to 1655) declared Villiers "the handsomest-bodied man in all of England; his limbs so well compacted, and his conversation so pleasing, and of so sweet a disposition".
Ascent at court
In August 1614, at age twenty-one, Villiers caught the eye of King James VI and I at a hunt in Apethorpe.Kathryn A. Morrison, Apethorpe (Yale, 2016), 92.Jason O'Toole, Exploring Early Modern Sexualities: The Desires of King James VI & I (Bloomsbury, 2025), p. 101. Opponents of the King's then favourite, the 1st Earl of Somerset, saw an opportunity to displace Somerset and began promoting Villiers. Money was raised to purchase Villiers a new wardrobe, and intense lobbying secured his appointment as Royal Cup-bearer, a position that allowed him to make conversation with the King. Villiers began to appear as a dancer in masques from 1615, in which he could exhibit his grace of movement and beauty of body, a recognised avenue to royal favour since the time of Queen Elizabeth I.
Under the King's patronage, Villiers advanced rapidly through the ranks of the nobility, and his court appointments grew in importance. In April 1615 he was knighted as a Gentleman of the Bedchamber.G. Dyfnallt Owen, HMC 75 Downshire, vol. 5 (London: HMSO, 1995), pp. 202 no. 423, 206 no. 432. In 1616, when he became the King's Master of the Horse, he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Whaddon, Viscount Villiers, and made a Knight of the Garter. The next year he was made Earl and in 1618 he was promoted to being Marquess of Buckingham; then finally in 1623, he was created Duke of Buckingham. Villiers's new rank allowed him to dance side by side with the royal heir Charles, with whom his friendship developed through his tutoring of the Prince in dance.
Villiers was appointed Lord High Admiral of England in 1619, and in 1623 the former Dukedom of Buckingham was recreated for him when he was negotiating abroad on the King's behalf. Since the Dukedom of Norfolk had lapsed in 1572 with the attainder and execution of the 4th Duke of Norfolk, Buckingham now became the only English duke who, at the time, was not a member of the royal family (James's two sons were Duke of Cornwall and Duke of York).
Relationship with James VI & I
Villiers was the last in a succession of handsome young favourites on whom the King lavished affection and patronage. The extent to which the relationship between the two was sexual has been much discussed. James's nickname for Buckingham was "Steenie", after St. Stephen, who was said to have had "the face of an angel". Speaking to the Privy Council in 1617, James tried to clarify the situation: Historian David M. Bergeron claims "Buckingham became James's last and greatest lover" citing flowery letters that followed 17th-century styles of masculinity. In a letter to Buckingham in 1623, the King ended with the salutation, "God bless you, my sweet child and wife, and grant that ye may ever be a comfort to your dear father and husband". Buckingham reciprocated the King's affections, writing back to James: "I naturally so love your person, and adore all your other parts, which are more than ever one man had", "I desire only to live in the world for your sake" and "I will live and die a lover of you". Buckingham himself provides ambiguous evidence, writing to James many years later that he had pondered "whether you loved me now...better than at the time which I shall never forget at Farnham, where the bed's head could not be found between the master and his dog".
Speculation about the close relationship between King and favourite was not confined to Great Britain. It was carried back to France by the poet Théophile de Viau, who was resident in England in 1621 and had then addressed to Buckingham the flattering ode Au marquis du Boukinquan.Text at Wikisource On his return, he went on to justify his own masculine preferences by a witty appeal both to Classical mythology and to the contemporary gossip: Apollo with his songs Debauched young Hyacinth ... And that learned English king, Wasn't Buckingham his fuck?Apollon avec ses chansons Desbaucha le jeune Hyacinthe... Et ce sçavant Roy d'Angleterre, Foutoit-il pas le Boukinquan? Matthieu Dupas, "La sodomie dans l'affaire Théophile de Viau", Les Dossiers du Grihl, January 2010, Paragraphs 57–58
Influence under James VI & I
Until King James died in March 1625, Buckingham was the King's constant companion and closest advisor, enjoying control of all royal patronage. Buckingham used his influence to prodigiously enrich his relatives and advance their social positions, which soured public opinion towards him.
In his rise to power, Buckingham became connected with the philosopher and jurist Sir Francis Bacon. Bacon wrote letters of advice to the young favourite and drafted the patent of nobility when Buckingham ascended to the peerage. With Buckingham's support, Bacon was appointed Lord Chancellor in 1618. In gratitude, Bacon honoured Buckingham's many requests for favours from the court for friends and allies. Following an investigation by Parliament into royal grants of monopoly, financial speculation and corrupt officials, Bacon was convicted of corruption and forced into retirement. Neither Buckingham nor the King attempted to intervene on Bacon's behalf. Many of Buckingham's contemporaries believed he had sacrificed Bacon to save himself from Parliamentary scrutiny, as he had been liberally spending public funds and accepting gifts and bribes.
From 1616, Buckingham also established a dominant influence in Irish affairs, beginning with the appointment of his client, Sir Oliver St John, as Lord Deputy, 1616–22. Thence, he acquired control of the Irish customs farm (1618), dominated Irish patronage at court, particularly with the sale of Irish titles and honours, and (from 1618) began to build substantial Irish estates for himself, his family and clients—with the aid of a plantation lobby, composed of official clients in Dublin. To the same end, he secured the creation of an Irish Court of Wards in 1622. Buckingham's influence thus crucially sustained an aggressive Irish plantation policy into the 1620s.
When Parliament began its investigation into monopolies and other abuses in England, and later Ireland in 1621, Buckingham made a show of support to avoid action being taken against him. However, the King's decision to send a commission of inquiry to Ireland, which included parliamentary firebrands, threatened to expose Buckingham's growing, often clandestine, interests there. Knowing that the King had assured the Spanish ambassador that the Parliament would not be allowed to imperil a Spanish matrimonial alliance, he therefore surreptitiously instigated a conflict between the Parliament and the King over the Spanish match, which resulted in the Parliament's premature dissolution in December 1621 and a hobbling of the Irish commission in 1622. Irish reforms introduced in 1623–24 by Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex, the Lord Treasurer, were largely nullified by Middlesex's impeachment and disgrace in the violently anti-Spanish 1624 parliament—spurred on by Buckingham and Prince Charles.
Charles I, the Lord Admiral and foreign affairs
In 1623 Buckingham, now Lord Admiral and effective Foreign Minister, 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 the agreement, and they returned in a black mood. 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.
Buckingham headed further marriage negotiations, but when, in December 1624, the betrothal to Henrietta Maria of France was announced, the choice of a Catholic was widely condemned. He visited France in May 1625 to assist in the negotiations, during which he was allegedly "embroiled in a plot to seduce the Queen of France", Anne of Austria, according to historian Desmond Seward. At Amiens, "where the court took official leave of the English embassy, Buckingham climbed into a private garden where the queen was taking an evening walk", and "may even have tried to rape her", although "Anne's shrieks summoned her attendants." King Louis XIII "was so affronted that henceforward he refused to think seriously of an English alliance."
Buckingham, whose popularity had suffered a further setback as a result of these events, took a decision to help the rebellious Huguenot Admiral Benjamin, Duke of Soubise. An ardent Protestant, Buckingham ordered Sir John Penington to help; but the Royal Navy only succeeded in attacking Cardinal Richelieu's enemies, defeating his objects in August 1625 and losing La Rochelle. Similarly he was blamed for the failure of the military expedition under the command of Ernst von Mansfeld, a famous German mercenary general, sent to the continent to recover the Electorate of the Palatinate in 1625, which had belonged to Frederick V, Elector Palatine, son-in-law of King James I of England. However, when the Duke of York became King Charles I, Buckingham was the only man from the court of James to maintain his position.