George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, 19th Baron de Ros (30 January 1628 – 16 April 1687) was an English statesman and poet who exerted considerable political power during the reign of Charles II of England.

That May, he had been appointed general of the eastern association in England, and was sent to raise forces abroad; the following year, he was chosen to lead the projected movement in Lancashire and to command the Scottish royalists.

[7] His subsequent negotiations with Oliver Cromwell's government, and his readiness to sacrifice the interests of the church, separated him from the rest of Charles's advisers and diminished his influence.

His estrangement from the royal family was completed by his audacious courtship of the king's widowed sister Mary, Princess of Orange, and by a money dispute with Charles.

He was appointed a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, carried the Sovereign's Orb at the coronation on 23 April 1661, and was made Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire on 21 September.

He helped suppress the projected insurrection in Yorkshire in 1663, went to sea in the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1665, and took measures to resist the Dutch or French invasion in June 1666.

The offending peers were both sent to the Tower, but were released after apologising; and Buckingham vented his spite by raising a claim to the title of Baron Ros, held by Dorchester's son-in-law.

He favoured religious toleration, and earned the praise of Richard Baxter; he supported a scheme of comprehension in 1668, and advised the Royal Declaration of Indulgence in 1672.

Arlington, next to Buckingham himself the most powerful member of the "Cabal" and a favourite of the king, was less easy to overcome; and he derived considerable influence from the control of foreign affairs entrusted to him.

After all this activity he suffered a keen disappointment in being passed over for the command of the newly formed Blackheath Army in favour of the Duke of Schomberg.

He defended himself chiefly by endeavouring to blame Arlington; but the house approved a petition to the king to remove Buckingham from his councils, presence and from employment forever.

[8] Buckingham retired, reformed his ways, attended church with his wife, began to pay his debts, became a "patriot", and was claimed by the country or opposition party as one of their leaders.

On 15 February 1677 he was one of the four lords who tried to embarrass the government by raising the question of whether the parliament, not having assembled according to the act of Edward III once in the year, had not been dissolved by the recent prorogation.

He was released in July, and immediately entered into intrigues with Paul Barillon, the French ambassador, with the object of hindering the grant of supplies to the king; and in 1678 he visited Paris to get the assistance of Louis XIV for the opposition's cause.

[13] He took an active part in prosecuting those implicated in the "Popish Plot", and accused the lord chief justice (Sir William Scroggs) in his own court while on circuit of favouring the Roman Catholics.

He, however, separated himself from the Whigs on the exclusion question, probably on account of his dislike of the Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Shaftesbury, was absent from the great debate in the Lords on 15 November 1680, and was restored to the king's favour in 1684.

He took no part in public life after James II's accession, but returned to his manor of Helmsley in Yorkshire, probably because of poor health and exhausted finances.

In 1685 he published a pamphlet, entitled A short Discourse on the Reasonableness of Man's having a Religion in which after discussing the main subject he returned to his favourite topic, religious toleration.

As he left no legitimate children, the title became extinct, and his great estate was completely dissipated; of the enormous mansion[14] he constructed at Cliveden in Buckinghamshire only the arcaded terrace remains.

A contemporary observer at the Court of Charles II found him: "Courteous, affable, generous, magnanimous...he is adored by the people....On the other hand he is an atheist, blasphemer, violent, cruel and infamous for his licentiousness, in which he is so wrapped up that there is no sex, nor age, nor condition of persons who are spared from it".

[18] His portrait has been drawn by Burnet, Count Hamilton in the Memoires de Grammont, John Dryden, Alexander Pope in the Epistle to Lord Bathurst, and Sir Walter Scott in Peveril of the Peak.

Dean Lockier, after alluding to his unrivalled skill in riding, dancing and fencing, adds, "When he came into the presence-chamber it was impossible for you not to follow him with your eye as he went along, he moved so gracefully".

John Dryden described him under the character of Zimri in lines in the poem Absalom and Achitophel (to which Buckingham replied in Poetical Reflections on a late Poem ... by a Person of Honour, 1682):[14] A man so various that he seemed to be/Not one, but all mankind's epitome;/Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,/Was everything by starts and nothing long;/But, in the course of one revolving moon/Was chymist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon../..Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late,/He had his jest, but they had his estate.

Buckingham himself wrote "Methinks, I see the wanton houres flee, And as they passe, turne back and laugh at me"; his last recorded words, "O!

He was the author of The Rehearsal, an amusing and clever satire on the heroic drama and especially on Dryden's The Conquest of Granada (first performed on 7 December 1671, at the Theatre Royal, and first published in 1672), a deservedly popular play which was imitated by Henry Fielding in Tom Thumb the Great, and by Sheridan in The Critic.

Later in life, when he was out of favour at court, he retired back to Fairfax Hall to pursue his favourite pastimes, hunting and working in his laboratory.

For example, he was requested by the society, to instruct his chemist to distil charcoal for their weekly experiments[31] and to supply a sample of unicorn horn for investigation by the members.

[31] Later, on 4 December 1666, the Earl of Northampton and the Bishop of Exeter were tasked with asking the Duke to accommodate the society with some rooms in York House, Strand.

John Evelyn, visiting Cliveden House (which Brian Fairfax[22][36][37] considered to be one of Buckingham's expensive Substructiones Insanae), on 23 July 1679, was disappointed to find a garden containing mainly ferns.

The Vicomte de Bragelonne sees him escorting Charles II's sister, Henrietta, to France to be married to Philippe I, Duke of Orléans.