the Roman Catholics, and by the seizure of French vessels on the ground that they were engaged in carrying goods for Spain.
When Charles’s second parliament met on the 6th of February 1626, it was not long before, under Eliot’s guidance, it asked for Buckingham’s punishment. He was impeached before the House of Lords on a long string of charges. Many of these charges were exaggerated, and some were untrue. His real crime was his complete failure as the leader of the administration. But as long as Charles refused to listen to the complaints of his minister’s incompetency, the only way in which the Commons could reach him was by bringing criminal charges against him. Charles dissolved his second parliament as he had dissolved his first. Subsequently the Star Chamber declared the duke innocent of the charges, and on the 1st of June Buckingham was elected chancellor of Cambridge University.
To find money was the great difficulty. Recourse was had to a forced loan, and men were thrown into prison for refusing to pay it. Disasters had occurred to Charles’s allies in Germany. The fleet sent out under Lord Willoughby (earl of Lindsey) against the Spaniards returned home shattered by a storm, and a French war was impending in addition to the Spanish one. The French were roused to reprisals by Charles’s persistence in seizing French vessels. Unwilling to leave La Rochelle open to the entrance of an English fleet, Richelieu laid siege to that stronghold of the French Huguenots. On the 27th of June 1627 Buckingham sailed from Portsmouth at the head of a numerous fleet, and a considerable land force, to relieve the besieged city.
His first enterprise was the siege of the fort of St Martin’s, on the Isle of Ré. The ground was hard, and the siege operations were converted into a blockade. On the 27th of September the defenders of the fort announced their readiness to surrender the next morning. In the night a fresh gale brought over a flotilla of French provision boats, which dashed through the English blockading squadron. The fort was provisioned for two months more. Buckingham resolved to struggle on, and sent for reinforcements from England. Charles would gladly have answered to his call. But England had long since ceased to care for the war. There was no money in the exchequer, no enthusiasm in the nation to supply the want. Before the reinforcements could arrive the French had thrown a superior force upon the island, and Buckingham was driven to retreat on the 29th of October with heavy loss, only 2989 troops out of nearly 7000 returning to England.
His spirits were as buoyant as ever. Ill luck, or the misconduct of others, was the cause of his failure. He had new plans for carrying on the war. But the parliament which met on the 17th of March 1628 was resolved to exact from the king an obligation to refrain from encroaching for the future on the liberties of his subjects.
In the parliamentary battle, which ended in the concession of the Petition of Right, Buckingham took an active share as a member of the House of Lords. He resisted as long as it was possible to resist the demand of the Commons, that the king should abandon his claim to imprison without showing cause. When the first unsatisfactory answer to the petition was made by the king on the 2nd of June, the Commons suspected, probably with truth, that it had been dictated by Buckingham. They prepared a remonstrance on the state of the nation, and Coke at last named the duke as the cause of all the misfortunes that had occurred. “The duke of Bucks is the cause of all our miseries . . . that man is the grievance of grievances.” Though on the 7th of June the king granted a satisfactory answer to the petition, the Commons proceeded with their remonstrance, and on the 11th demanded that he might no longer continue in office.
Once more Charles refused to surrender Buckingham, and a few days later he prorogued parliament in anger. The popular feeling was greatly excited. Lampoons circulated freely from hand to hand, and Dr Lambe, a quack doctor, who dabbled in astrology, and was believed to exercise influence over Buckingham, was murdered in the streets of London. Rude doggerel lines announced that the duke should share the doctor’s fate.
With the clouds gathering round him, Buckingham went down to Portsmouth to take the command of one final expedition for the relief of La Rochelle. For the first time even he was beginning to acknowledge that he had undertaken a task beyond his powers. There was a force of inertia in the officials which resisted his efforts to spur them on to an enterprise which they believed to be doomed to failure. He entered gladly into a scheme of pacification proposed by the Venetian ambassador. But before he could know whether there was to be peace or war, the knife of an assassin put an end to his career. John Felton, who had served at Ré, had been disappointed of promotion, and had not been paid that which was due to him for his services, read the declaration of the Commons that Buckingham was a public enemy, and eagerly caught at the excuse for revenging his private wrongs under cover of those of his country. Waiting, on the morning of the 23rd of August, beside the door of the room in which Buckingham was breakfasting, he stabbed him to the heart as he came out.
Buckingham married Lady Katherine Manners, daughter of Francis, 6th earl of Rutland, by whom he left three sons and one daughter, of whom George, the second son (1628–1687), succeeded to the dukedom.
Bibliography.—Article in the Dict. of Nat. Biography, by S. R. Gardiner; Life of Buckingham, by Sir Henry Wotton (1642), reprinted in Harleian Miscellany, viii. 613; A Parallel between Robert Earl of Essex and George late Duke of Buckingham, by the same writer (1641), in the Thomason Tracts, 164 (20); Characters of the same by Edward, Earl of Clarendon (1706); Life of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, &c. (London, 1740); Historical and Biographical Memoirs of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (London, 1819); Letters of the Duke and Duchess of Buckingham (Edinburgh, 1834); Historia Vitae . . . Ricardi II., &c., by Thos. Hearne (1729); Documents illustrating the Impeachment of Buckingham, published by the Camden Society and edited by S. R. Gardiner (1889); Epistolae Hoelianae (James Howell), 187, 189, 203; Poems and Songs relating to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, ed. by R. W. Fairholt for the Percy Society (1850); Rous’s Diary (Camden Soc., 1856), p. 27; Gent. Mag. (1845), ii. 137-144 (portrait of Buckingham dead); Cal. of State Papers, and MSS. in the British Museum (various collections). Hist. MSS. Comm. Series. See also P. Gibbs, The Romance of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1908). (S. R. G.; P. C. Y.)
BUCKINGHAM, GEORGE VILLIERS, 2nd Duke of[1] (1628–1687), English statesman, son of the 1st duke, was born on the 30th of January 1628. He was brought up, together with his younger brother Francis, by King Charles I. with his own children, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained the degree of M.A. in 1642. He fought for the king in the Civil War, and took part in the attack on Lichfield Close in April 1643. Subsequently, under the care of the earl of Northumberland, the two brothers travelled abroad and lived at Florence and Rome. When the Second Civil War broke out they joined the earl of Holland in Surrey, in July 1648. Lord Francis was killed near Kingston, and Buckingham and Holland were surprised at St Neots on the 10th, the duke succeeding in escaping to Holland. In consequence of his participation in the rebellion, his lands, which had been restored to him in 1647 on account of his youth, were now again confiscated, a considerable portion passing into the possession of Fairfax; and he refused to compound. Charles II. conferred on him the Garter on the 19th of September 1649, and admitted him to the privy council on the 6th of April 1650. In opposition to Hyde he supported the alliance with the Scottish presbyterians, accompanied Charles to Scotland in June, and allied himself with Argyll, dissuading Charles from joining the royalist plot of October 1650, and being suspected of betraying the plan to the convenanting leaders. In May he had been appointed general of the eastern association in England, and was commissioned to raise forces abroad; and in the following year he was chosen to lead the projected movement in Lancashire and to command the Scottish royalists. He was present with Charles at the battle of Worcester on the 3rd of September 1651, and escaped safely
