Streams of people trot down an unassuming thoroughfare running from the Strand to reach Embankment underground station, without ever stopping to consider its history. Close by Villiers Street are Duke Street, Buckingham Street and George Street, all commemorating the extraordinary George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (apparently there is also an ‘Of Alley’). I love to point out to visitors the nearby York Watergate, standing high and dry in Embankment Gardens, but formerly on the river frontage. York House, the infamous Duke’s home, stood nearby, and the man commemorated in these street names must regularly have bounded through the Watergate with his customary brio.
Benjamin Woolley’s ‘The King’s Assassin: The fatal affair of George Villiers and James I’ (2017) tells the story of the handsome aristocracy-adjacent lad who was dangled in front of the gay Stuart king by a cunning cabal seeking to promote their own interests. But young George – in due course loaded with honours, jewels, positions and possessions – was nobody’s pawn. His dazzling flight was succeeded by an Icarus-like fall.
As Woolley relates, it was no done deal, for James I was already smitten by the unpleasant-sounding Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, who strenuously resisted being replaced by gorgeous George. But a poisoning scandal ruined Carr’s chances, and the king was soon signing off love missives to George as his ‘sweet child and wife… [from] your dear dad and husband’. George married Kate, the daughter of the Earl of Rutland, who brought a handy dowry, but seems, in addition to his relationship with the king, to have been a bit of a shagger all round, with a keen interest in Anne of Austria, the wife of the king of France.
Charles, the shy younger brother of Henry, the prince of Wales, came to prominence with the latter’s unexpected death, and much of Woolley’s story concerns the marriage prospects of the new heir to the throne. He relates with gusto Charles and George’s incognito jaunt to Spain to win the favour of the Infanta, and thereby that of the all-powerful Spanish empire. Chaotic, daring and improvised, the adventure had all the hallmarks of the Duke’s impulsive personality and, Woolley suggests, cemented the pair’s close relationship. George’s boundless confidence boosted him through political opposition, personal scandal and failed military operations alike. Strife between parliament and monarch was already building at this time, and though it’s outside the scope of the book, we know that Charles’s intransigence will lead to civil war and his eventual execution. But that comes a long time after the Duke’s unfortunate demise.
Such a relentless rise to the position of most important commoner in the land, unaccompanied by any obvious experience or skill, was bound to cause fury. But for a time Villiers was unassailable. Woolley’s account of his strange, indeed suspicious behaviour during James’s final illness explains his book’s title; an epilogue provides a convincing medical analysis of what occurred in the king’s last hours.
As for George Villiers, headstrong, unscrupulous, vengeful and arrogant as he undoubtedly was, it’s impossible to read about his eventual fate without feeling a shiver of awe at the snuffing out of such a dazzling light. Woolley brings clarity to the complex story of way European and national politics were shaped by headstrong personalities. Incidentally, I once met a descendant of the Duke who assured me that the correct pronunciation is ‘Villers’. But I can’t quite bring myself to drop the additional syllable.
The King’s Assassin by Benjamin Woolley, Pan £14.99