History, ii. 716; Pope's Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, viii. 389; Stanhope's Reign of Queen Anne, 1870; Strickland's Queens of England, vol. vii. passim; Suffolk Corresp. ed. Croker, 1824; Tidjspiegel, October 1892, p. 159; Tenison's Memoirs; Granville's Poems ap. Anderson, vol. vii.]
VILLIERS, FRANÇOIS HUET (1772?–1813), painter, son of Jean-Baptiste Huet, a French artist of repute, was born in Paris about 1772, and studied under his father. He exhibited portraits at the Paris salon in 1799, 1800, and 1801, and then settled in London. He was a versatile artist, drawing landscapes, animals, and architecture, but excelled in his portraits in miniature and oils. He was appointed miniature-painter to the Duke and Duchess of York, his portraits of whom were engraved, as were also those of Louis XVIII, the Duke and Duchess of Angoulême, the Duc d'Enghien, and Mrs. Quentin. Villiers painted many actresses and other ladies in mythological characters, and his ‘Hebe’ was very popular and frequently engraved. He exhibited largely at the Royal Academy and other exhibitions from 1803 until his death, and was one of the ‘Associated Artists in Watercolours’ from 1808 to 1812. He published two sets of etchings—‘Rudiments of Cattle,’ 1805, and ‘Rudiments and Characters of Trees,’ 1806—and made the drawings for some of the plates in Ackermann's ‘Westminster Abbey.’ Villiers died in Great Marlborough Street, London, on 27 July 1813, and was buried in St. Pancras churchyard.
[Gent. Mag. 1813, ii. 197; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Dussieux's Artistes Français à l'Étranger; Roget's Hist. of the ‘Old Water-colour’ Soc.]
VILLIERS, GEORGE, first Duke of Buckingham (1592–1628), court favourite, born on 28 Aug. 1592, was second son of Sir George Villiers of Brooksby in Leicestershire, and his second wife, Mary, daughter of Anthony Beaumont of Glenfield, Leicestershire (Wooton's Life in Harl. Misc. ed. 1810, viii. 613). His brothers, Sir John, first viscount Purbeck [q. v.], and Christopher, earl of Anglesey [q. v.], and his half-brother Sir Edward [q. v.], are separately noticed. His mother had formerly been a waiting-gentlewoman in the household of Lady Beaumont of Cole Orton [see under Villiers, Sir Edward] (Weldon, Secret Hist. of the Court of James I; Wilson in Kennet, ii. 698).
At ten years of age George was ‘sent to Billesdon school, in the same county, where he was taught the principles of music and other slight literature till the thirteenth year of his age, at which time his father died’ (Wotton, in Harl. Misc. viii. 614). After this he lived with his mother at Goodby, where, being ‘by nature little contemplative,’ he learnt merely to dance and fence, in preparation for the life of a courtier. With this object in view his mother sent him at the age of eighteen to France, strangely enough in company with Sir John Eliot, ‘where he improved himself well in the language for one that had so little grammatical foundation, but more in the exercises of that nobility, for the space of three years.’ After his return he remained for a year under his mother's roof. In 1614, in his twenty-second year, young Villiers came to London. His first thought was to marry a daughter of Sir Roger Aston, but his poverty was such as to render an immediate marriage unadvisable, and he was recommended by Sir John Graham, a gentleman of the bedchamber, to throw the lady over and to try his fortune at court (ib.)
In August 1614 Villiers was introduced to the king at Apethorpe. The good-looking sprightly youth caught James's fancy. An attempt made in November to procure him a post in the bedchamber failed in consequence of Somerset's opposition, but the office of cupbearer was given him, placing his foot on the first rung of the ladder (Chamberlain to Carleton, 24 Nov. 1614, State Papers, Dom. lxxviii. 61). Yet Somerset by his demerits contributed most to the young courtier's advancement. Haughty and irritating, Somerset gradually alienated the king by his ill-temper and his airs of superiority. Villiers, whose temper was amiable in these days, was pushed forward by the crowd of courtiers who took umbrage at the arrogance of Somerset, and even by statesmen, to whom the close connection between Somerset and the Spanish party, headed by the Howards, was in itself a ground of offence. Among these was Archbishop Abbot, who won over the queen, and it was on her entreaty that on 23 April 1615 James, in defiance of Somerset's remonstrances, appointed Villiers gentleman of the bedchamber (Abbot's narrative in Rushworth, i. 456). On the 24th Villiers was knighted (Nichols, Progresses, iii. 80), a pension of 1,000l. being granted him for his maintenance.
As yet, however, the rise of Villiers was of no political significance. Somerset maintained his ascendency, shaken indeed by the united opposition of the anti-Spanish party, but by no means overthrown. When the crash came in the autumn of 1615 the removal of Somerset was not immediately followed by the further rise of Villiers, but it made such a rise inevitable. It was not a case of one official succeeding another, but rather
