"Although he had an unshakeable faith in his right to rule, he required distraction from the heavy burden of state. Scholarship, including musing on the divine right of kings, was one of these escape routes; hunting and drunkenness, too; but his true solace, for nearly 10 years, was his beloved bedfellow, George Villiers, whom he raised from humble origins to become Duke of Buckingham."
"Buckingham has been relatively overlooked because his identity-bending role as James's sweet child and wife rendered him somehow suspect. A man whose skills included dancing like a dream and looking marvellous on a horse was seen as less worthy of study than a minister of state, despite the decade-long role Buckingham would grow into as co-architect and implementer of Stuart policy."
James I experienced solitude as monarch and sought distraction through scholarship, hunting, and drinking, but his principal solace for nearly a decade was George Villiers. Villiers rose from humble origins to become Duke of Buckingham and served as James's beloved companion with an identity-bending role that rendered him suspect to contemporaries. Buckingham combined personal charm—dancing and horsemanship—with political influence, growing into a co-architect and implementer of Stuart policy. The policies associated with his influence contained roots of the conflicts that erupted in civil war fourteen years later. A comprehensive reassessment of Buckingham's importance is long overdue, requiring anthropological and psychological insight alongside wry perception to capture his complexity.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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