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George Villiers: from royal favourite to enemy number one
00:46:49
George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham, had charm and political ambition that made him a favourite of King James I and VI. Lucy Hughes-Hallett discusses his life, and ultimate downfall
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Podcast Host
Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. The rise of George Villiers was meteoric. Born into middling nobility, his elevation as a favorite of James VI and first saw him given the title of the Duke of Buckingham, and also saw him gain immense influence, which carried on through the reign of James, son and successor Charles I. Yet as Villiers powers grew, he he quickly became a lightning rod for the growing anger and resentment directed at the Crown in the early 17th century. And his downfall was swift and brutal. Lucy Hughes Hallett, author of the A New Biography of Villiers, shared more with Eleanor Evans.
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Eleanor Evans
Lucy, can you introduce us to George Villiers and how he came to be at the King's court?
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Lucy Hughes Hallett
Certainly, yes. So King James I, he was a married man. He was married to Queen Anne of Denmark. He got her pregnant seven times. Only three of those children survived past infancy. But everybody knew that the King loved young men. And for many years he'd been besotted with Robert Carr, who became the Earl of Somerset. And Carr had risen very far. He'd become the Lord High Chamberlain, he'd become an earl, he'd become one of the richest people in the country. But then he fell from favour for reasons which add up to a really rather sensational story, which I probably won't go into in detail now, because we're going to focus on his successor, Buckingham. But just to give you the main outline, Somerset and his wife were jointly found guilty of having murdered his best friend, Sir Thomas Overbury, the instruments of murder being a combination of witchcraft and poisoned custard tarts. So Somerset and wife are in the Tower facing execution, although actually their sentence was commuted. So they lived on rather unhappily. But it meant that the King was lonely. He was looking for a new love object. By this time, he and the Queen were living pretty much separate lives, and a group of ultra Protestant grandees, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, decided that if they could bring another gorgeous young man into James's circle and the King fell in love with him, then they hoped they would be able to manipulate this young man and through him, influence foreign policy, in particular to persuade the King to go to war with Spain, which was what they wanted. So Buckingham had. Before that point, he was a gentleman, as they would have said, but he certainly wasn't from one of the great ruling families. He was the fourth son of a minor landowner in the Midlands, and he was chosen for this role simply because he was so dazzlingly beautiful.
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Eleanor Evans
How is he using these physical attributes and perhaps his charisma as well? Can you bring us towards him as a man and how he's working in these courts early on?
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Lucy Hughes Hallett
Yes. So he was famously good looking. I mean, he was described by contemporaries as the handsomest bodied man in Europe. And even one of them said, one of the handsomest men in the whole world. So he was beautiful. He dressed very carefully. Everyone dressed rather beautifully at court. But Buckingham was quite the dandy and he was a dancer. And this was much remarked on by his contemporaries. And he danced publicly at court, in the court masks. And it was said of him, and I don't think we have to take this literally, that he could leap up in the air and he could leap higher than everybody else, but most of us, when we get to the top of our leap, then start to come back down to earth. But this contemporary observer tells us that when Buckingham got to the top of his leap, he would just stay up in the air for a while, cutting capers. He capered like a young goat, this person said. But so he was a phenomenal dancer and he was admired for that. Dancing was. It was seen as being a very high art. It wasn't just a form of entertainment. And the masks, they were a very important part of the sort of symbolic ceremonial at the court. And the performers weren't, on the whole, professional entertainers. They were the grandees, they were the great people of court. The king didn't dance, but the Queen did, and so did the princes. And so Buckingham's kind of star position in these displays of dancing had a kind of symbolic significance, which is sort of rather hard for us to imagine now. It's a way in which the Jacobean court feels quite alien. But it was an important part of his power. And one of the first sort of big jobs he got, as it were, within government was being master of the horse, which sounds like a ceremonial position, but actually it was really tantamount to being Minister for Transport, because, you know, how did you get about? You got about on a horse, there was no other way, or in a horse drawn carriage. And Buckingham again, was a famously good horseman, and so his prowess in riding somehow translated into a political position of Great power and influence.
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Eleanor Evans
What a wonderful visual. I'm just imagining him now, leaping like Rudolf Nureyev into people's hearts, winning hearts left, right and centre, on horseback. You've given us an insight there of what it's like in James VI and First Court, with a murder plot and witchcraft and rumours circling. And as you say, it's this world of rumours and intrigue that George initially has his rise, his entrance into the court, knowing, as you do, his life so closely. Now, how do you characterise his relationship with the King?
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Lucy Hughes Hallett
Well, the King was madly in love with him, definitely, and some of their letters to each other have survived. And King James addresses Villiers, Buckingham, as he was to become, as my sweet child and wife. He calls him steenie, after St. Stephen. And the Bible tells us that St. Stephen had the face of an angel. And the King thought that Buckingham did too. He was head over heels in love and he. At one point, the members of the Privy Council were complaining about the amount of power and influence Buckingham was getting by virtue of his relationship with the King. And at that point, King James stood up before the Privy Council and he thought it was time he got things straight. And he said that, yes, indeed, he loved George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham to be more than he loved other men. And that was okay, he thought, he wasn't ashamed of it, because after all, Jesus Christ had had a similar relationship. He said, Jesus had his John and I have my George. So the King was in love. But of course, it's, you know, it's more complicated to say how Villas felt. There are very, very great advantages to having a king fall in love with you. And as a result of being the King's new beloved, Villars was to become a duke. He was to become first Minister, first to James and subsequently to King Charles. And he became pretty much the richest person in the country. So, of course, his feelings for the King were not disinterested. But I believe that he was genuinely fond of King James and their letters to each other are on both sides, very affectionate. And Buckingham, you know, he teases, but he never quite oversteps the line. He's jokey, he's fun, you know, he's not a sycophantic courtier, but he always remembers that the King is the King.
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Eleanor Evans
A hugely significant relationship then, and one that leads to this staggering rise, for we'll call him the Duke of Buckingham because that is what he becomes, obviously. How is this relationship understood by others in the court, others publicly, and what does this mean for public Perception of Buckingham.
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Lucy Hughes Hallett
Well, of course, different people responded in different ways, really. By the time Buckingham had arrived at court, it was very well known in high court circles that the King had this fondness for beautiful young men. And so the point at which people might have been shocked by that had, in a way, been long past. People had got over it and had come to terms with it. So there wasn't really any overt disapproval. Whether people privately were worried about it, whether on moral grounds or simply on grounds of taste, is a different matter. I think it is clear that from some very hostile accounts and descriptions of the way they conducted themselves together, it's clear that some people found their very obviously intimate relationship rather disturbing or even revolting. You know, there are some very hostile accounts, but it was all tamped down because the King was the king, and, you know, you couldn't really criticize him because he was God's representative on earth. That's what King James thought, and an awful lot of his subjects thought so, too. But one of the things that really interests me about this period, and one of the reasons why I wanted to write about Buckingham, was that we're into the first period in which public opinion can be clearly known, because there is the beginning of what we would nowadays call the press. And it doesn't take the form of, you know, broadsheet newspapers, but it takes the form of pamphlets and often just handwritten newsletters that were distributed in the streets and certainly among the kind of middling sort, the middle class, as we would like call it, where Puritans were more and more dominant. Then there were some pretty furiously disapproving accounts of the relationship between Buckingham and the King.
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Eleanor Evans
Well, we'll come to the significance of some of those reports, I'm sure, as we talk further. But one person who could have disapproved, but it seems from your account it's very much the opposite, was the King's son and eventual heir, Prince Charles. Can we go into Buckingham's relationship here?
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Lucy Hughes Hallett
Yes. Well, now, initially, he and Charles were fairly distant with each other, and there are even accounts of. There was a particular moment when Charles, I think, was trying to be sort of jolly and fun. Poor Prince Charles, who grew up, of course, to be King Charles I and was a very nervous, stubborn, rather gauche, very poor player of the political game, even as an adult and as an adolescent, he was even less comfortable with himself or with other people. And, of course, I think that for, you know, an adolescent, a young man, a boy, you know, relationships with your father's male Lover are often rather complicated. And so there is this occasion, they were at Greenwich palace, and Prince Charles, I think, maybe trying to make friends with Buckingham, played a trick on him. It was very fashionable those days to have sort of water spouts concealed in your garden. And Prince Charles summoned Buckingham over as though to show him a beautiful rose or something. And as Buckingham, in his beautiful, expensive clothes, bent over to look at this plant, Prince Charles pressed a hidden button and Buckingham was squirted with cold water, which he clearly didn't find anything like as amusing as the Prince might have hoped he would. And onlookers were astonished and shocked to see at that point it was clear that Buckingham was having to really make an effort to stop himself from actually hitting the Prince of Wales. So, bad beginning. But they did gradually become very good companions. They became friends largely as a result of the most extraordinary adventure that they undertook together, which was when they went to Spain.
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Eleanor Evans
Well, let's stay on this, then, because you've painted a picture for us of someone who is holding significant sway in the King's court and remarkably, it extends to. Yes, allowing him to travel to Spain with his heir, son and heir to make a match. Can you take us into this phenomenon known as the Spanish Match?
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Lucy Hughes Hallett
Absolutely. So, from when Charles was Probably only about 10 or 11, negotiations had been going on between diplomats on English side and on the Spanish side to arrange for him to marry a Spanish princess, the Infanta Maria, who was the sister of. Of. Well, he was the heir to the throne when the negotiations began. But by the time we get to the story, the Infanta's brother was King Philip iv. And these negotiations went on and on and on, and the marriage contract seemed to be getting no nearer to completion, even 10 years after the beginning of the process. And we now know from the efforts of modern historians who've been looking into the Spanish archives, that the Spaniards had no intention ever of allowing their princess to marry an English prince. He was a heretic, you know, why were they going to allow that? But it was useful to them diplomatically to keep this illusion going, mainly so that Prince Charles wouldn't be married off to a French princess. They didn't want an Anglo French alliance. But so, obviously, to begin with, Charles wasn't ready to get married anyway. He didn't mind, take as long as they liked. But then, when he was 22, he began to really want his wife. And so he and Buckingham cooked up this idea that the two of them would go to Spain in person and somehow cut through this very long drawn out diplomatic process and bring home the Infanta. And they managed to trick King James into giving his consent to this. They made him promise that they could go. And once he'd given his promise and a man of honour can't go back on his promise, then they revealed that they weren't going to go, as obviously King James would have expected, with a great following of courtiers and, you know, all the pomp and circumstance properly attendant on a journey undertaken by the heir to the throne. They were going to go with only three companions. They would go incognito, they would call themselves Jack Smith and Tom Smith. They would wear false beards, which, by the way, didn't work at all. People kept saying, who are those people? They're obviously in disguise. And they would go by public transport. In other words, they would go. And this is one, I think the most interesting things about this journey is how it reveals the incredible efficiency of the Europe wide network of posting inns and post horses. And so they began from Buckingham's House near Chelmsford in Essex. And you set off, you gallop as hard as you can until your poor horse is absolutely on its knees. And at that point you arrive at the next posting inn, you get a fresh horse and on you go. So that's how they were travelling, which is how most ordinary people would have travelled. It's certainly not the way that the heir to the throne of England would normally go. Welcome to Nada Yada island, next on.
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Eleanor Evans
And is it fair to say that upon their arrival, as well as this understated journey there, without the pomp and circumstance of what you'd expect, they make several other key mistakes?
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Lucy Hughes Hallett
They do, they do. I mean, for one thing, they turn up late one evening in Madrid and knock on the door of the English ambassador in Madrid, who is appalled. He has no idea they're coming. And he, poor man, has spent most of the last decade patiently negotiating what he thinks is going to be the. The Spanish match, the marriage between Prince Charles and Maria. And he at once understands that their arrival is disastrous because effectively what they're doing is handing themselves over as hostages. And very quickly they are invited to come and stay in the royal palace, which is a vast sort of fortress. And it quickly becomes clear that nobody ever says, you know, you're a prisoner here. But when Prince Charles, after a month or so of negotiation, when he begins to realize that actually this marriage is never going to happen, when he says to young King Philip, I think I'm going to go home now, please, it's been nice. But Philip says, no, please, I cannot allow you to go because I so dearly wish for the happy consummation of this match that, you know, you must stay here. And what gradually emerges is that King Philip and all of his court are hoping to persuade Prince Charles to convert to Roman Catholicism, which will be a great coup for them. Effectively, it means that when he becomes king, then maybe England will once more become a part of the Catholic Church and King Philip will go to heaven because he's done such a great thing for Roman Catholicism. And then the marriage can take place because then the infantic will have a proper Catholic bridegroom. So they're being strung along and they can't leave. And meanwhile there are these excruciatingly embarrassing scenes of courtship. When they sit watching the play, there's a lot of drama going on. This is the great age of English drama, but also a Spanish drama. And so they sit and watch plays in the royal quarters. And they sit in a long row. Buckingham, of course, is standing with the rest of the courtiers, but Prince Charles is sitting on a dais with the Spanish royal family and he's not allowed to sit next to Maria. The Queen of Spain sits between him and the Infanta. And after actually several weeks of this of, you know, just sitting in a row, not speaking to each other, Charles finally manages to persuade King Philip and the formidable Count Duke of Olivares, who is actually ruling Spain at this point, that really he should be allowed to address his would be bride. And there's a wonderful description of the conversation which ensues and it's so painful. I mean, poor things, they have no shared language. The Earl of Bristol, who is the English ambassador in Madrid, interprets. So Charles comes out with these flowery compliments, which then wretched Bristol has to translate them into Spanish. And then eventually Charles addresses a direct question to the Infanta about her health. And she says effectively, very well, thank you. And then that has to be interpreted and so on and so forth. And I mean, it's not a fun, flirty conversation by any Manner of means, no.
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Eleanor Evans
You can see the chemistry being somewhat stilted in the whole affair, really. So we will say that it's a pretty bungled affair in this case. So, returning to Buckingham, we have this man who has become a favourite of King James VI and first made a dizzying rise through the ranks, so much so that he presumes to try and make the match for the heir himself. But it's bungled so terribly. What does it mean for Buckingham's relationship with the King and his standing in public life as well? As you say, there's a culture of looking to public figures and critiquing them that's coming out in this time as well.
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Lucy Hughes Hallett
Well, oddly enough, the complete failure of the Spanish match is very, very popular because the English people actually don't want a Spanish princess as their future queen. And when Buckingham, Charles come home empty handed, no, Infanta, there is jubilation and, you know, in the streets of London, people are roaring out their pleasure, their happiness. They're lighting bonfires, they're ringing bells and they're processing through the streets with flaming torches and they're getting very, very drunk. And at one point, one observer says there wasn't a sober head between St. Paul's Cathedral and then he can't think where. Maybe Southampton. So great rejoicing. And Buckingham at that time is probably as popular as he ever will be in his life. King James is a pacifist and has been very determined to maintain good relationships with Spain, and that was really the point of that projected marriage. But Buckingham and Charles have not enjoyed themselves in Spain. They've both felt probably afraid and certainly humiliated and frustrated. And really, from that time onwards, they are both keen to revive the old enmity between England and Spain and maybe to start up another war. And James keeps the lid on them, keeps saying, no, no, no, no, I am the King of Peace. That's what he calls himself. And this country will suffer if it goes to war against the might of Spain. And he's absolutely right, as subsequent events will prove. But James is. He's not old, he's actually still in his 50s, but he's not at all well. And a couple of years after the two young men return from Spain, James dies, at which point Charles becomes King. And Buckingham has been a very loyal and efficient deputy to King James and basically just doing what James tells him, running the country, taking most of the hard work on his shoulders, but always as the second in command to a very canny and experienced older king. But now the king is 24 year old Charles, who's very nervous, very gauche and nothing like as clever as his father. And so basically Buckingham takes the lead, which everyone finds extraordinary. It's very unusual. In fact, people keep saying this is completely unknown, that the favorite of one king should then become the favorite of the next king. And Buckingham's power continues into the next reign. And at that point Buckingham becomes more popular than he's ever been before because almost at once he and Charles start deciding to make war on Spain. And everyone's very excited about this prospect. They should have been grateful, they really should, for the, you know, two decades of peace which King James had maintained. But they're bored by it. It's actually sort of heartbreaking to see these people so enthusiastic for some very ill conceived aggressive acts which are going to land them in so much trouble. But they're thrilled. And because Buckingham is now, you know, setting himself up as a military commander, they call him St. George on horseback and they really, they worship him for a bit.
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Eleanor Evans
As you say, it's quite saddening to know what's to come with his policy. In the book you characterize him for his stubbornness and his inability to learn. I wonder if you can take us through quickly moments that really brought that home for you, where he was just pushing forward when he really shouldn't have been.
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Lucy Hughes Hallett
Yes, well, in the three years after King James died, Buckingham planned and sent out two expeditions against Cadiz, very provocative raids on Spain. He was inspired. I think he'd been reading too much about the great Elizabethans, about Sir Francis Drake. He was hoping to repeat the kind of successes that Drake had against the Spaniards in the previous century. But he just turned out not to be very good at being a military commander. And also what he forgot was that yes, Drake had some great successes. He also had some dismal failures. And it's just not a good idea to take on a very powerful enemy when you're underfunded, as Buckingham's expeditions always were. And repeatedly they went out too late in the year. You know, if you send a fleet out to sea after midsummer, crossing the Bay of Biscay, it's going to come into terrible trouble. It's going to meet with storms. And the kind of tragic thing about Buckingham's. Well, there are many tragic things about Buckingham's attacks on Spain, but one of them is that thousands and thousands of people died. The sailors, the soldiers on board those ships, and they weren't killed in battle, they were just dying of disease on board the ships or they were starving or they were dying of exposure because the ships weren't properly provisioned. The men didn't even have enough clothes to wear. The accounts of those expeditions are absolutely awful. And then, I mean, goodness. So Buckingham has started this completely unnecessary war with Spain and then without ending that war, he takes on France as well. I mean, not sensible.
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Eleanor Evans
Yes. So you can see how public opinion might begin to turn if he's risking and spending all these lives on these campaigns. And anger begins to build as well against the King. Now, you've mentioned James VI and first belief in divine rule, which he passes on to his son. You've alluded to the money and the spending that these policies are incurring from Parliament. And Buckingham is pretty significant in this division between Parliament and Crown that's beginning to widen even more in the early 17th century. You use a wonderful phrase that he becomes a lightning rod that directed anger from its target. I wonder if we can talk about Buckingham's role in that.
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Lucy Hughes Hallett
Yes, well, my book is called the Scapegoat, because in the 1620s, it was still very hard for anyone to think ill of the King. And of course, you know, some years later, the English people would rise up and make war against their King and then in the 1640s, they would actually kill him. But in Buckingham's lifetime, no one could really imagine doing that. It was much easier, although Buckingham and Charles, in all these warlike endeavours, had really been working together, or actually Buckingham had been doing the work, but with King Charles's consent. But it was much easier for people to think, we love our King, we respect our King, we revere our King, but he's being led astray by an evil advisor. And so Buckingham was sort of loaded with all the blame for all the dreadful things that were going wrong, the loss of life and the loss of money. There was absolutely nothing in the exchequer. These wars had pretty much bankrupted the country with terrible distress, resulting not just to the wretched soldiers and sailors, but to everyone in the land. And Buckingham became therefore the sort of the focal figure for a great dispute between King Charles standing up for his royal prerogative and the people, and of course, the people's representatives in Parliament standing up for the citizens rights.
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Eleanor Evans
So, as you say, your book explores this role he assumes as the scapegoat. What does this mean for Buckingham's ultimate fate?
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Lucy Hughes Hallett
Well, King Charles, very much against his will, had to keep summoning Parliament. He was never fond of Parliament, actually, nor had King James been. King James once said he couldn't imagine why his ancestors allowed such an institution of Parliament to come into existence. They didn't like being accountable, but Charles had to keep summoning Parliament in order to get Parliament to authorise further taxation to pay for the wars. And there were terrific turbulent scenes, especially in the House of Commons, because the Commons, I mean, they knew that all the King wanted was for them just to vote through another round of taxation. But their jolly well weren't going to do that until they'd had a chance to air their grievances. And their grievances were pretty fundamental because Buckingham and Charles had been ordering rounds of taxation which were completely unconstitutional. And when people refused to pay up, they were imprisoning those people in defiance of the ancient principle of habeas corpus. So Parliament had a lot to complain about and they kept complaining and they kept trying to blame everything on Buckingham. And repeatedly, King Charles would dismiss Parliament to protect Buckingham. House of Commons attempted to impeach Buckingham and then they staged a silent protest. At one point, when they sat in the Commons chamber for hours on end without speaking. And of course, one of the things they weren't thereby doing was authorizing the taxation the King wanted. And there were terrible scenes. At one stage, the two leading orators of the House of Commons, Sir John Elliot and Sir Dudley Digges, were both dragged off to imprisonment in the Tower of London, at which point all the other members of the Commons got up and stormed out, repeated angry, angry scenes, until finally there came a point when, in 1628, all the leaders of the House of Commons agreed that this time in this session, they weren't going to mention Buckingham, because whenever they did, King Charles would just step in and dismiss Parliament yet again. So they kind of swore, we're not going to talk about that, we're just going to focus on citizens rights. But it didn't help. Still, King Charles wouldn't listen to their complaints. And so there came a time when again, they'd stage another of these silent protests. And then Sir Benjamin Rudyard stood up and he said, this is the crisis of Parliaments. If we don't speak now, we must forever after hold our peace. They know that King Charles's patience is about to run out again and he's probably going to dissolve Parliament within an hour. And they have no guarantee that Parliament will ever be summoned again. So at that point, it becomes sort of almost comical if it wasn't so tragic. Some of the great orators of the House of Commons, they stand up to make a speech and then they're overcome with so. So they sit back down Again, they can't speak that, you know, emotion is running so high. And one contemporary newsletter says there were over 100 weeping eyes. And then up stands the 78 year old sir Edward Coke, who's the kind of, as it were, the old war horse of democracy and of the law. And he stands up and he says he's been imprisoned for defying the King before. A few years earlier. He says, I'm an old man, I probably will never speak in this house again, and so I now will speak freely. And he says what everyone else has so far sworn they won't do in that session. He says, the grievance of grievances, the cause of all our miseries is the Duke of Buckingham. So of course King Charles dissolves Parliament, but by that stage the press, as I said earlier, has become very active. And so Coke's speech is available, the text of it is available in pamphlet form on the streets within a matter of hours. And a puritan from Suffolk called John Felton reads it and he thinks, if this one man is the cause of all our miseries, I can do my country a great service. And Felton buys a knife. Parliament's been dissolved. Buckingham has gone down to Portsmouth where he's preparing yet another fleet to go out and this time invade France. And Felton walks to Portsmouth, he can't afford a horse, and he makes his way into the Greyhound Inn where Buckingham has set up his headquarters. He goes into the room where Buckingham is having breakfast with all his officers. And when he sees his moment, he steps forward and he kills the Duke of Buckingham with one blow to the heart.
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Eleanor Evans
And this is a public place, isn't it? It's remarkable that this is all done in public. This man making his way through the streets with a knife in his pocket, only to plunge it into this person who has advised two kings and risen to such dizzying heights of power. What happens in the aftermath of Buckingham's death? How is it regarded? Is it celebrated well?
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Lucy Hughes Hallett
So Felton the murderer is actually seen as something of a hero, because there are a lot of people who are very angry with Buckingham by that time. All the soldiers and sailors who've been involved in his campaigns, most of whom are still unpaid because there's no money for them and their families and all the people who've been suffering from these extra taxation that's been made necessary by these wars. And so Felton is then marched back to London to be interrogated. And people are very frightened because it's now nearly quarter of a century since the gunpowder plot. But, you know, if on November 5th, Guy Fawkes and his mates had succeeded in blowing up the palace of Westminster and they came very close to it, you know, that would have been the most successful and devastating terrorist act probably that the world has ever seen, actually up until now. It would have destroyed the entire ruling class of England, including the King and the entire Parliament. So people are scared and they think that Felton must be a member of a similar group. And so he's repeatedly questioned by the Privy Council and he keeps saying, no, no, you know, it's just me. God told me to do this, it's just me. And at one point, one of the Privy Councillors, there's a dispute about which one it was, says to him, you've got to give us names, you've got to give us names. We don't believe you. And in that room over there is the rack and you're going on it unless you give us names. And then Felton says this wonderful thing, he says, well, of course, if you put me on the rack in my agony, I will name names. And the first name I'm going to name is yours, my Lord, which just. It's so brilliant, it's so witty and it immediately exposes the futility of torture. But then, I'm afraid it didn't say Felton. He wasn't tortured actually, but he was executed. And then Buckingham is buried in Westminster Abbey, in King Henry's chapel in. And at that point there were no other non royal people buried in that chapel.
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Eleanor Evans
So it's an ignominious and brutal end for Buckingham, but he does end up in a situation of elevated status. Nevertheless. I wonder if we can begin to close this episode out with a sense of you as Buckingham. In 2024, he's had a little bit of a resurgence, popularity wise, thanks to a drama earlier this year in which Nicholas Galitzine played him in Mary and George. And he seems to have been risen in profile as this favourite of James vi and first as well. How would you like people to be regarding him?
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Lucy Hughes Hallett
Well, what we haven't talked much about today is his role as a patron of the arts, which I think is how he wanted to be remembered. He had a fantastic collection of paintings long before Prince Charles, who as King Charles I would accumulate a wonderful collection of paintings. Buckingham had started to collect and he was bringing Italian Renaissance paintings into this country. So he was a collector of art, he was a patron of art. He sat for his portrait over 30 times to Van Dyck, Rubens, von Honthorst but most of the distinguished artists of the day. And of course, I mean, he'd first come to James's notice as a beautiful young man dancing in the court masques. And the masks had a very odd and interesting function in the cultural life of the Jacobean court. They were a sort of celebration of monarchy and a form of performance art. And Buckingham was a brilliant dancer. So there's that whole aspect of him, outside of the kind of his public career, that engagement with the arts and culture of the Jacobean court, which, I mean, of course, we all know about Jacobean drama. You know, the great names, Shakespeare, Webster, Tanner. But it was a culturally very rich period which, because very shortly thereafter the Civil wars began, that culture that Buckingham knew was very soon absolutely gone with the wind.
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Podcast Host
That was Lucy Hughes Hallett. Her book the Scapegoat is out now. And if you want to hear more about Villiers, there's two episodes in our archive that you should definitely check out. The first is an interview with Benjamin Woolley about the show Mary and George, which focuses on Villiers Rise. Or you can hear more about the reign of King James vi. And first in our Life of the Week episode with Jo Ellis. You can find links to both of those conversations in the description of this podcast. Thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Daniel Kramer Arden.