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.

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".

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.

[12] 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 Elizabeth I.

"[21] 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 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".

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.

[29] 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.

[30] 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.

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.

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.

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.

Buckingham's past failures had provoked the House of Commons to refuse further levies of taxation to fund his extravagant adventures, but at the same time Parliament was intrigued by the prospect of dealing a blow to the international Catholic conspiracy, and the expedition was authorized.

Yet even before the troops set sail the food prepared for the expedition was consumed awaiting the Board of Ordnance to deliver the required cannonry and musket balls.

As experienced admirals were unavailable, Buckingham assigned command of the expedition to Sir Edward Cecil, a battle-hardened soldier who had won renown fighting on behalf of the Dutch against the Spanish.

Although Buckingham's plan was tactically sound, calling for landing further up the coast and marching the militia army on the city, the troops were badly equipped, ill-disciplined, and poorly trained.

Following the successful recovery of Ré island by the French forces, the Treaty of Paris (1626) was signed between the city of La Rochelle and King Louis XIII on 5 February 1626, preserving religious freedom but imposing some guaranties against possible future rebellions.

[53] The 1625 painting by Michiel van Miereveld is not only of unparalleled magnificence, with a jacket encrusted with pearls which also hang in ropes across it, but may also contain a reference to his diplomatic coup that year in negotiating the marriage of the future Charles I.

At his entry to the French Court, he is recorded as wearing a grey velvet suit from which the loosely threaded pearls dropped to the ground as he advanced to make his bow to the queen, to the general wonder.

[58] Buckingham probably met Peter Paul Rubens while conducting the royal marriage negotiations in Paris in 1625 and commissioned two ambitious advertisements of his standing from the painter.

In front of the marble temple to which he is carried upwards are the probable figures of Virtue and Abundance; the three Graces offer the Duke a crown of flowers, while Envy seeks to pull him down and a lion challenges him.

[63] The original was destroyed in a fire at the Le Gallais depository in St Helier, Jersey, on 30 September 1949, but a sketch by Rubens is now in the Kimbell Art Museum.

[66] In 1628, during the political turmoil that culminated in his assassination, Buckingham commissioned another masque-like painting from Gerard van Honthorst, The Liberal Arts presented to King Charles and Henrietta Maria.

[71] The son of Alexander Gill the Elder was sentenced to a fine of £2000 and the removal of his ears, after being overheard drinking to the health of Felton, and stating that Buckingham had joined King James in hell.

The black marble sculptures at each corner include Mars and Neptune, in reference to his military and naval exploits; on the catafalque lie bronze-gilt effigies of the Duke and his wife (who long survived him), cast by Hubert Le Sueur.

[87] A fictionalised Buckingham is one of the characters in Alexandre Dumas's celebrated 1844 novel The Three Musketeers, which paints him as in love with Anne of Austria, as well as dealing with the siege of La Rochelle and his assassination by Felton.

The favourite of two kings, immensely rich, all-powerful in a kingdom which he disordered at his fancy and calmed again at his caprice, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, had lived one of those fabulous existences which survive, in the course of centuries, to astonish posterity.

The second film includes his assassination by Felton, but (following the original novel in this) depicts the killing as being orchestrated by the fictional Milady de Winter, an agent of the principal villain, Cardinal Richelieu.

The Duke also figures in historical romances like Evelyn Anthony's Charles, The King (1963) and Bertrice Small's Darling Jasmine (2007), although the main focus there is on other protagonists.

Another historical fiction, Ronald Blythe's The Assassin (2004), is written from his killer's point of view as a final confession while awaiting execution in the Tower of London.