Buckingham has fascinated historians more than any other figure in the Restoration court. He has inspired a number of biographies as well as a study of the Cabal, the loose association of leading courtiers who dominated politics at the close of Charles II’s first decade on the throne. He also maintains a prominent place in a number of articles and scholarly theses.
Buckingham has come to be portrayed as the ultimate exemplar of the vicious licentiousness of the court of Charles II, an amoral rake who also possessed some of the less desirable attributes of a medieval over-mighty subject. The reputation, compounded by John Dryden’s characterization of him as Zimri in Absalom and Achitophel, is not entirely justified.
As a politician, though, Buckingham was unreliable. His experiences both as the heir of the notorious and assassinated favourite of two kings and latterly during the Civil War and Interregnum as soldier, exile and petitioner, serves in part to explain his Janus-faced attitude. Perhaps most significant, though, was his desire to be popular. To this end he was not as interested in maintaining a consistent course as many of his contemporaries and his failure to maintain the king’s trust led to his sense of ill treatment and disappointment. This in turn contributed to the occasionally unruly behaviour that he exhibited for the remainder of his life.
Before and after the Restoration
Brought up with the future king, Prince Charles, after the assassination of his father, Buckingham was too young to fight in the first Civil War, much of which he claimed to have spent abroad. In July 1648, however, he was involved in the doomed royalist uprising in Surrey, in which his brother was killed. He escaped to the continent, was proscribed by Parliament as a traitor, and accompanied Charles II on his expedition to Scotland in 1651 (where he may have been initiated into freemasonry).
Buckingham arrived in London in Monck’s train in January 1660. According to the French envoy, he intended to ‘vindicate Fairfax’.
Buckingham took his seat in the House of Lords on 1 May. On that day he was also named to the committee appointed to consider an answer to the king’s letter from Breda. He was thereafter present on just over half of all sitting days in the Convention. The following day (2 May) he was nominated to a further three committees, including that for settling the militia, and on 3 May he secured an order of the House to put a stop to timber felling or demolition works taking place on lands to which he laid claim and which had been confiscated from him since July 1651. Later that month, the House (with the Commons’ concurrence) ordered the return of his lands and the order was later adjusted to comprehend those estates alienated from the duke since 1648.
Although Buckingham was not among those appointed to wait on the king, on 22 May he was one of eight peers given leave to travel to Kent to be present at the king’s arrival. His reception there was distinctly cold. Neither Charles nor his inner circle had forgotten Buckingham’s abandonment of the court in exile, nor his largely unhelpful contribution to the Scottish expedition in 1651. Even so, when the king’s entourage set off, Buckingham, uninvited, took advantage of the king’s carriage having an open boot to make space for himself within it. By the time the king arrived in London, Buckingham had succeeded in restoring himself within the king’s good graces and he was by then prominent among those riding in his entourage. Even so, he was the only member of the pre-Restoration Privy Council not to be admitted to the new body.
Buckingham submitted a further petition to the Lords to be restored to his estates on 13 June 1660, which was referred to the committee for petitions. The following day, James Compton, 3rd earl of Northampton, reported from the committee recommending that Buckingham be restored to his lands and on 2 July the House ordered that he should be put in possession of relevant papers for the claim. Buckingham joined with John Paulet, 5th marquess of Winchester, in introducing Monck as duke of Albemarle on 13 July. On 31 July, although noted as present on the attendance list, Buckingham was marked as missing at a call of the House. His absence was a brief one and he resumed his seat on 2 August. Four days later, he was involved in a dispute with George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, when Bristol chose to recommend the claim of William Cavendish, marquess (later duke) of Newcastle, for reparations over that of Buckingham, Newcastle being (according to Bristol) a man of ‘more merit’. Some ‘hot and high words’ were exchanged and the two men had to be forcibly restrained before peace was restored in the chamber.
Buckingham had returned to England by November, when he was described by Bartet, one of the French agents in London, as ‘a real man of pleasure, who thinks of nothing but enjoying himself.’
At the end of December 1660 the French agent Bartet was referring to Buckingham as one of Clarendon’s last enemies over the affair of the marriage of Clarendon’s daughter to the duke of York. Buckingham wrote to Clarendon, though, at the end of January 1661: Clarendon’s elaborate reply suggests that Buckingham may have gone abroad again, and that his letter offered the chancellor an olive branch.
In search of office, 1661-6
Buckingham took his seat in the new Parliament on 8 May 1661, after which he was present on just under 53 per cent of all sitting days and during which he was named to at least 23 committees, including that for repealing the acts of the Long Parliament, to which he was nominated on 24 Jan. 1662. An annotated list of the members of the committee drawn up by the clerk included Buckingham’s name marked with a cross.
Buckingham’s continuing involvement in the affairs of his own locality was reflected in his being added to the committee for the bill for regulating cloth-making in Yorkshire in February 1662. The same month he was also added to the committee for uniformity. In April he was named to the committee to draw up a clause concerning those clergymen deprived under the bill. Buckingham’s involvement in committee work occasionally resulted in his presiding over particular pieces of business but his activities were (as in so many other aspects of his life) sporadic. On 28 Jan. he had taken the chair in a session of the committee for repealing acts but after several points were discussed the committee was adjourned and taken over by John Lucas, Baron Lucas, when it next met. Buckingham showed greater interest in the militia bill. He presided over a meeting of the committee for the bill on 22 Mar. and a further three sessions of the committee on 11, 12 and 14 April. These included a marathon session on 12 Apr. which was finally adjourned at 11.30 at night after a number of amendments had been made to the text.
It may not be a coincidence that it was during the same month that he was finally admitted to the Privy Council. In May, he was nominated one of a sub-committee of eight peers to draw up reasons why the Lords had agreed not to employ the word ‘lord’ in conjunction with ‘lieutenant’ within the terms of the militia bill, presumably as a result of concerns about confusion of privilege in the case of a county lieutenant not being a peer. He was then one of five peers named to prepare an expedient reflecting the sense of the peers’ debate on the matter. On 14 May he reported from the committee nominated to draw up heads for a conference on the militia bill and two days later he was again named to a sub-committee to prepare amendments to a proviso within the bill. With the session expected to be brought to a conclusion imminently, on 19 May he was one of four peers directed to wait on the king to request the preservation of works made for the Great Level of the Fens until such time as Parliament could put in place legislation to protect them.
Following the close of the session, Buckingham joined the king at Portsmouth to greet the new queen.
Buckingham returned to London in time to take his seat at the beginning of the new session on 18 Feb. 1663, on which day he was appointed with the lord privy seal (John Robartes, Baron Robartes, later earl of Radnor) to wait on the king with the House’s thanks for his speech, which may be indicative of his support for legislation giving effect to the 1662 Declaration of Indulgence. He was thereafter present on just over a quarter of all sitting days in the session, during which he was named to five committees, in addition to the standing committees.
By mid-May 1663 Buckingham was reckoned by Samuel Pepys‡ to have been one of a handful of favourites at court who had virtually ousted Clarendon from power, the others being Bristol, Ashley, Henry Bennet, soon to be promoted Baron (later earl of) Arlington and Sir Charles Berkeley, later Viscount Fitzharding [I] and earl of Falmouth.
That summer he was also said to have been involved with advising his ‘very great friend’, Frances Stuart, not to settle for ‘any fortune that is not very great’ in response to an offer of marriage she had received from Mr Griffin (probably Edward Griffin, later Baron Griffin).
Buckingham was absent from the opening of the new session, having previously been reported to have left town on purpose to avoid taking his seat. He may have been eager to maintain a low profile so as to avoid Bristol’s expected efforts to revive his cause against Clarendon. Buckingham’s failure to attend resulted in ‘much discourse’.
Despite his success in managing the government’s response to the Yorkshire conspiracy, Buckingham remained without significant central office. A series of reports in the second half of the year suggested that he would shortly to be granted a place but rumours that he was to purchase the mastership of the horse from Albemarle that summer failed to be realized. Albemarle’s duchess was said to have rejected Buckingham’s proposal that he pay for the place in instalments of £1,000 a year for 20 years.
Buckingham had been nominated one of the commissioners for proroguing parliament in August 1664. Shortly before Parliament met again in November, Buckingham was also one of a number of peers to travel to Portsmouth intending to serve as a volunteer in the fleet under the command of York.
Buckingham’s brief rapprochement with Ormond seems rapidly to have descended into acrimony. Buckingham accused Ormond of failing to do all that he had promised to secure for him the presidency of the council of the North. In a letter to Ormond of 26 Apr. Buckingham complained bitterly of being ‘so long in the habit of being ill-used, that now he may well begin to think that he deserves no better usage.’
Following his demonstration of willingness to serve the previous winter, Buckingham rejoined the fleet for the new campaign in April 1665. His attitude revealed much of his ability to gain popular appeal while infuriating his peers. Although he was commended by the sailors aboard the George for his ‘very noble’ behaviour whilst serving with them (in 1667 he would be accused of trying to foment rebellion among the sailors), Buckingham proved so insubordinate towards the fleet’s commanders, York, and Edward Montagu, earl of Sandwich, that he was ordered ashore.
Buckingham spent Christmas in the country at the seat of William Crofts, Baron Crofts, along with Crofts’ kinsman, Arlington.
The Irish Cattle Bill, 1666-7
Buckingham took his seat in the new session on 5 Oct. 1666, after which he was present on approximately 67 per cent of all sitting days. The session witnessed the early stages of what appears to have been a concerted effort by Buckingham to take a greater interest in the House’s business. The diarist John Milward‡, for example, noted Buckingham listening in on debates in the Commons on the Irish cattle bill, a measure in which he took a close interest not least as it presented an opportunity of humbling Ormond.
As a sign of his intention to play a more prominent role in Parliament, on the opening day of the session Buckingham subjected the House to a long harangue against those involved in cheating the public revenue and proposed that those found guilty of such offences should be executed for treason. Pepys recorded that Buckingham’s proposal was greeted with mirth in the Lords. According to Sir Thomas Clifford, later Baron Clifford, ‘the House made no order, but left him to do as he thought fit, and he is now hard at it drawing up his bill and has nothing else in his head.’
Debates over the Irish cattle bill quickly became personal. On 26 Oct. Buckingham informed the House that he had been challenged the previous day by another of Ormond’s sons, Thomas Butler, earl of Ossory [I] (who sat in the House as Baron Butler of Moore Park), following a speech Buckingham had made in support of the bill, in which he had said that those in opposition were displaying an ‘Irish understanding’ of the issue. This challenge, Buckingham maintained, amounted to a breach of privilege as it resulted from something spoken within the chamber.
Buckingham resumed his seat on 8 Nov. 1666 and with it his activity in pursuit of the bill. On 9 Nov. he presided over the House while it gave consideration to the second and third clauses in the bill as a committee of the whole. By the middle of the month Buckingham and Ashley had allied themselves with John Maitland, duke of Lauderdale [S] (who later sat in the House as earl of Guilford), to ensure that Scottish cattle would not be encompassed within the bill. On 17 Nov. Buckingham was again casting aspersions upon the motivation of the Irish in seeking to provide homeless Londoners with their beef. Tempers flared again and he, Ashley and Ossory were once more ordered to abide by the House’s injunction not to quarrel. According to Edward Conway, Viscount (later earl of) Conway, at the heart of Buckingham and Ashley’s motivation for driving forward the measure was their ‘implacable hatred’ towards Ormond.
Besides his prominent role in the Irish cattle bill, Buckingham was also an active participant in several other areas of business. On 20 Nov. 1666 he was entrusted with the proxy of Francis Talbot, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, with whose countess Buckingham was said to have formed a relationship during the year, and on 27 Nov. he also received that of Charles Gerard, Baron Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield), which was vacated on 5 December. On 22 Nov. he was nominated one of the managers of a conference concerning the public accounts and he was named sole manager of a further conference on the same matter six days later. He was closely involved with the manoeuvres surrounding the attempt by his kinsman, John Manners, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) to secure a divorce from his wife. On 17 Nov. Buckingham was added to the committee considering the bill for illegitimating Lady Roos’s children. During a session of the committee on 26 Nov. consideration was taken of an objection made by Buckingham to Roos making use of his courtesy title, to which Buckingham also laid claim as a scion of the Manners family. On 29 Nov. the lord chamberlain (Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester) reported Buckingham’s objection, as a result of which it had been agreed to alter the wording to ‘John Manners, commonly called Lord Roos’.
Buckingham’s behaviour in the session was probably a concerted effort to impress upon the king his significance as a political broker. In addition to his quarrels with Ossory and Roos, Buckingham found further opportunities for his turbulent disposition in the debates concerning the Canary patent. On 29 Nov. 1666 both he and John Lucas, Baron Lucas, took exception to the procedure being employed over the dispute and the following month, he became involved in a tussle with Henry Pierrepont, marquess of Dorchester, during a conference concerning the same business. Dorchester and Buckingham’s dislike of one another was well known. Having found themselves squeezed together in a crowded conference chamber, they fell to jostling for position before Buckingham seized Dorchester (one reporter mistakenly suggested that it was Edward Somerset, 2nd marquess of Worcester) by the nose and then plucked off his periwig. Both peers were conveyed to the Tower for their undignified behaviour.
Shortly before the close of the session, one of Buckingham’s associates, John Heydon, was arrested on a charge of treason; Henry North, Buckingham’s steward, was also arrested. Heydon’s arrest seems to have been the culmination of a concerted effort on the part of the court and in particular Arlington to damage the duke. In building up their case, the administration made use of a number of informers, among them William Leving, a former Yorkshire plotter, who were willing to testify that Buckingham had been engaged in stirring up unrest in the country and, in particular, inciting the seamen to mutiny. Heydon was a self-styled Rosicrucian, who claimed to have ‘predicted’ the Restoration, and had been in Buckingham’s train for some time. In June 1660 he had attended a dinner given by his patron for the king. Now he stood accused of casting the king’s horoscope (a treasonable activity) on Buckingham’s orders.
Arlington’s efforts to discredit the duke proved markedly successful at first and by the end of February 1667 Buckingham had been put out of all his offices. His Yorkshire clients, Osborne and George Savile, later marquess of Halifax, laid down their commissions as deputy lieutenants in Yorkshire.
As Buckingham continued to elude arrest, a factional mêlée ensued at court. Although a number of his friends were reported to ‘bewail his ill conduct’, Andrew Marvell‡ noted in April that the king had been persuaded by others to think ‘better of him than formerly.’ Brodrick disagreed and informed Ormond that the king had declared Buckingham to be the cause of the continuing war with the Dutch.
The Dutch attack on the Medway in the second week of June offered Buckingham an opportunity of returning to favour. The prosecution seems to have enhanced Buckingham’s standing, and his friends in Yorkshire may have helped to derail it by arresting the government’s chief informer, Leving, on a charge of highway robbery.
For all his apparent confidence some reckoned that Buckingham appeared sufficiently guilty to stand in need of the king’s pardon and he was riled enough to become involved in ‘bitter and sharp’ exchanges with Arlington during the proceedings.
The Fall of Clarendon, 1667-8
Buckingham’s restoration to favour coincided with Clarendon’s fall from grace. Buckingham appears at first to have attempted to convince the lord chancellor to join with him in opposition to Arlington, but the efforts made by Martin Clifford and Clarendon’s secretary, Matthew Wren‡, to win over the lord chancellor met with a firm refusal.
By September 1667, Buckingham’s star had returned, dramatically, to the ascendant.
However mercurial he may have remained, Buckingham’s clear intention was to take on himself the management of Parliament, working closely with his Commons allies, Edward Seymour, Sir Robert Howard‡ and Sir Richard Temple‡. In return they expected places in the administration at the expense of the old order headed by Clarendon.
The French envoy was in no doubt that Buckingham had played a crucial role in bringing around certain members of the lower House to agree.
In the Lords, Buckingham chaired two sessions of the committee considering the trials of peers bill on 7 and 9 November.
On 20 Nov. 1667 Buckingham voted in favour of committing Clarendon on an unspecified charge of treason.
to show the people that they had done their duty in accusing the chancellor of England, but [that] there are friends who are his accomplices and are turning all their efforts towards saving him against the security and intention of the king of England and to the prejudice of the public.
PRO 31/3/117, p. 46.
With the stakes in the contest apparently rising alarmingly – according to Ruvigny, Buckingham had been told by the king to raise the militia in Yorkshire, and there were signs of unrest ‘in the provinces’ – Clarendon slipped away into exile on 30 November.
The succession to Clarendon and the Shrewsbury affair, 1668
In the month after Clarendon’s departure, the struggle for power continued. Buckingham was said to be ‘much in esteem’ with some of the old republicans and he made no secret of his encouragement of their ambitions.
Ruvigny reported in the middle of the month that Buckingham was coming under attack because he had become ‘suspect to the Spanish faction’. Certainly, while alliance with the enemies of France had been important in the movement against Clarendon, Buckingham seems to have been keen (as he would continue to be) to forge an alliance with France, telling the ambassador at the beginning of 1668 Buckingham that although high in the king’s trust, he was not yet sufficiently established in council to sustain the project for binding England and France closer in alliance.
Buckingham’s pardon (which was granted at the close of January, then stopped through Robartes’s interposition and ordered to be redrafted early the next month, finally passing at the end of February) took on greater significance with the House set to resume on 6 February.
that there are certain people in this country, rich, clever and well-concerted, who are not in parliament but are in close correspondence with it through their friends and relations, who are resolved to change the face of the court and instil in it conduct which would be beneficial to the nation, and to restore to it the esteem it has lost through the ministry of certain people who are entirely incapable of governing this kingdom.PRO 31/3/118, pp. 51-2.
Buckingham took his seat on the first day after the adjournment, before he was in receipt of his pardon. His ability to do so emphasized his dominance at this stage. Pepys thought that Parliament would be likely to ‘fall heavy on the business’ of the pardon. But Conway argued that Buckingham was the leader of a ‘great interest’ in the kingdom being at the head of ‘the fanatics’: ‘the king complies with him out of fear, the Commons are swayed by him as a favourite and a premier minister; he himself thinks to arrive to be another Oliver.’ Another correspondent echoed Conway’s assessment and concluded that ‘the duke of Buckingham is the great favourite, and his cabal are Major Wildman, Dr Owen, and the rest of that fraternity, so that some say we are carried in Oliver’s basket.’
Buckingham was missing at a call of the House on 17 Feb. but he resumed his place two days after. At the heart of the policies aimed at by Buckingham and his allies was a moderating religious programme represented by a comprehension bill to ease the position of some Protestant dissenters. The measure was supported by one of Buckingham’s clerical associates, John Wilkins, later bishop of Chester, but the pre-emptive hostility expressed in the House of Commons towards comprehension during a debate on 10 February, and the ensuing efforts in there to pass a conventicle act to replace the 1664 act set to expire in May underlined the limits to Buckingham’s influence in the lower House. His ‘undertaking’ had disintegrated almost as soon as it had met. On 24 Feb. Ruvigny was concluding that Buckingham had ‘lost much of his credit at court and Parliament through the shortcomings of his conduct, which has never been controllable, and by the skill of Isola’ (the imperial ambassador).
Shrewsbury died on 16 March. On the 18th, William Prynne‡ moved in the Commons for a bill to be drawn up stripping duellists of their estates. He was answered by Buckingham’s associate, Sir Thomas Littleton‡, who urged that although the affair was a sad one, Buckingham had been granted a pardon and the matter was effectively closed. Littleton then turned his attention to a fresh assault on the bishops, clearly indicating the policy Buckingham and his faction were eager to advance.
Throughout these domestic dramas, Buckingham continued to be active in the House. On 24 Apr. he was named, ironically enough, to the committee for the bill to prevent duels. At the end of the month he chaired a session of the committee for privileges considering the East India Company’s petition to the Commons. The Company’s complaint concerned the actions of Thomas Skinner, who had lodged a case with the Lords seeking compensation from them the previous year. The Lords had finally found in Skinner’s favour in March 1668 triggering the Company’s petition in which they protested at the use of the upper chamber for an original cause. Buckingham reported to the House from the privileges committee on 1 May.
Buckingham was one of three peers appointed to wait on the king to request deferring the prorogation for a few days to enable the House to bring to a conclusion its privilege dispute with the Commons.
If we are in the wrong, we and our predecessors have been so for these many hundred of years, and not only our predecessors, but yours too: this being the first time that ever an appeal was made in point of judicature, from the Lords House to the House of Commons.
Claiming that ‘a greater interest does oblige us at this time, rather to join in the preservation of both our privileges, than to differ about the violation of either’, he argued that ‘the dispute at present is not between the House of Lords and the House of Commons, but between us and Westminster Hall’. He concluded with a warning that ‘if you do not allow us in some cases to try men without juries, you will then absolutely take away the use of impeachments, which I humbly conceive you will not think proper to have done at this time.’
The session ended a few days later with the divisions between the Houses unresolved. Buckingham and his adherents were blamed by the king for the turmoil of the previous two sessions of Parliament. Sir Richard Temple, in his memorandum discussing the reasons for the chaos of the previous session, noted that the anti-Clarendonian coalition had been divided by the competition between Buckingham and Arlington, which had been egged on by Ormond and Roger Boyle, earl of Orrery‡, and had been ‘too much countenanced by the king’. In spite of this, Buckingham was at last able to secure a significant place at court around the end of May by purchasing the mastership of the horse from Albemarle for £20,000, or £10,000 plus certain lands. The move prompted a rumour that more changes would soon follow.
During the summer Oxford reported, implausibly, that a new friendship had been struck between Buckingham and Ormond.
The French treaty and the lieutenancy of Ireland, 1668-9
The new French ambassador, Colbert de Croissy, dispatched by Louis XIV to try to negotiate a new treaty of friendship with Charles II to overcome the cooling in relations caused by France’s alliance with the Dutch and by Arlington’s Triple Alliance earlier in the year, made a particular point of visiting Buckingham early in his embassy (though he had waited a long time for Buckingham to visit him). When they did meet, at the beginning of September, Buckingham was full of apparent enthusiasm for the treaty project, and effusive in his professions of service to the French king, though he would blow hot and cold on the subject of the treaty over the next year.
the king having done me the honour of coming to dine with me, and brought them with him, on rising from dinner, they spent two whole hours walking, just the two of them, in my garden, speaking of what should be done, and did not even follow the king when he left. I knew that they were speaking only of this affair, and that the duke of Buckingham has so far shown great repugnance at the dissolution of this Parliament, thinking to have enough credit with it to carry his sentiments, although it is said that this is very much diminished.
PRO 31/3/119, pp. 91-3.
This remarkable scene of apparent harmony and cooperation did not belie the continued existence of a rivalry between the two for the king’s favour and the position of principal minister, with the position of Ormond and succession to the office of lord treasurer being particular bones of contention. Others, including York and Lauderdale (who was said to have been reconciled with Buckingham through the mediation of Lord Keeper Bridgeman) were still seen as taking sides in the contest.
Buckingham was at this time unusually active in attempting to assert his control over policy. With Lord Keeper Bridgeman, he was holding talks with Lauderdale on the subject of Anglo-Scottish Union. He was talking regularly to the French ministers in London, both in person and through his secretary, Ellis Leighton, assuring them of his intention to secure an Anglo-French alliance and of his disinclination to see Parliament recalled. He was said to be meeting with Wildman and other former commonwealthmen, hiding his association with this last group from the king by allowing rumours to circulate that he was out wenching.
Such a change of mind and the impracticality of the scheme might have been one factor affecting the delicate balance of factions at the end of 1668, with the king perhaps beginning to recognize that Buckingham could offer little in terms of control over the present Parliament. In December 1668, he was not only snubbed by York but also by the king, who took his brother’s part and criticized Buckingham for failing to meet his obligations (presumably referring to his inability to extract satisfactory supply from Parliament as he had promised).
In March 1669, Buckingham’s play, The Country Gentleman, provoked Sir William Coventry, who was transparently ridiculed in it, into challenging the duke to a duel.
Nevertheless, the king did not visibly withdraw his favour from Buckingham, and the tension between Buckingham and other members of the court, in particular York, continued over the summer, and may have grown as a meeting of Parliament drew nearer.
With Parliament due to meet again in October, speculation about the unstable state of court politics remained at a high level.
Buckingham took his seat the first day of the new session, on 19 Oct. 1669, after which he was present on 35 per cent of all sitting days. On 25 Oct. he was named to the committee to consider the decay of trade and fall of rents and on 6 Nov. to that for considering the report presented by the commissioners for accounts. On 10 Nov. he intervened in the debate over the bill sent up from the Commons for taking away the Lords’ privileges to try original causes. He argued that the bill before them should either be amended to the Lords’ satisfaction or thrown out and that a committee should then be nominated to draw up a new bill for regulating the peers’ privileges (which had previously been suggested by William Widdrington, 2nd Baron Widdrington). Buckingham was seconded in the last point by a number of peers, including York, and the bill was duly rejected by all bar two.
By the time the session was brought to a close in December 1669, Buckingham was said by the earl of Sandwich to be at the head of an interest in the House which comprised Charles Howard, 2nd earl of Berkshire, John Carey, 2nd earl of Dover, Widdrington, and Bristol as well as eight members of the Commons: Lord Buckhurst, Sir Thomas Osborne, Lord Vaughan, Sir Frescheville Hollis, Edward Seymour, Sir Robert Howard and Sir Richard Temple. Buckingham’s ‘party’, Sandwich noted, ‘of itself is found not so strong in the House of Commons as was supposed, and only is strong when in point of accounts, liberty of conscience, or trade, the country gentlemen or the Presbyterians join with them but they dare not undertake anything alone’. His interest in the Lords, Sandwich estimated ‘not to be great’.
The French and the Cabal, 1670-1
The king’s decision to recall Robartes from Ireland early in 1670 and replace him with Berkeley of Stratton, which was done without consulting Buckingham, was said to have left the duke disgruntled at missing out again on securing the lieutenancy for himself.
Following the adjournment in April 1670, Buckingham was once again at Newmarket in the king’s company by which time government was reported to be in the hands of a cabinet comprising Buckingham, Orrery, Lauderdale, the lord keeper (Bridgeman) and Sir John Trevor‡.
Buckingham remained engaged in the treaty process into the autumn, when he pressed to be permitted to return to France to conclude the negotiations ‘in the face of everyone’s opposition’.
Buckingham took his seat in the session following the adjournment on 24 Oct. 1670, on which day he introduced the king’s son, James Scott, as duke of Monmouth. Absent at a call on 14 Nov., by the close of the year Buckingham’s enthusiasm for the alliance with France was perceived to have waned in the face of broad popular opposition.
On 11 Feb. Buckingham was named to the committee for the bill for exporting beer and on 7 Apr. to the committee for the game bill. Later that month, on 18 Apr., he was added as a manager of the conference with the Commons concerning the additional impositions on foreign commodities. His reputation was further diminished when he scandalized society in March by arranging to have his recently deceased bastard son by the countess of Shrewsbury interred in the Villiers family vault in Westminster Abbey under the honorific title of earl of Coventry.
finding this a great advantage to render the duke of Bucks ill with the king, to lay the blame of the loss of the bill upon him, and the country party, finding a difference at court, were glad to blow the coal. Besides that magnifying the house of Commons (whom Clifford and Arlington governs) did make those persons considerable and of great power with the king, which if the house of peers had been suffered to control them, the peerage wouold have lessened their power and interest, and Buckingham and Ashley and the nobles would have grown most in the king’s esteem.
Harris, Sandwich, ii. 334-5.
By the end of the session on 22 April 1671, Colbert reported that Buckingham, unable to ‘desist from the affectation of pleasing the people, although his way of life and his talent are against it… has declaimed in all sorts of company that he finds himself against the alliance with France.’
In May 1671, Buckingham finally took a major step towards sorting out his chaotic affairs by placing his extensive (though heavily indebted) estates in trustees headed by the banking partnership of Sir Robert Clayton‡ and John Morris. Although his gross annual income was said to be in the region of £19,600, making him one of the richest peers in the country on paper, one estimate set his debts at £123,140.
After the turbulent session that had just passed, the duke and York were said to be in uncharacteristic agreement against a further recall of Parliament. Although towards the end of July another reconciliation with Arlington was staged, by September it was reported that Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale were now ranged against Arlington and the duchess of Cleveland (as the countess of Castlemaine now was). By October, it was reported that Buckingham had declared himself opposed to the current Parliament’s ever meeting again.
The Third Anglo-Dutch War, 1672-4
While at Newmarket Buckingham had assured Colbert of his continuing good intentions towards France, but by the middle of November he was said not to be ‘so fierce for the French as formerly’. In December, when further international developments relating to the role of the Swedes and Danes were discussed, it was reported that, ‘Buckingham, Arlington, Clifford, Ashley and Lauderdale are the junto about this grand affair’ and at the close of the year, these five were appointed commissioners to negotiate with the French ambassador.
By the opening of 1673, Buckingham was said to have recovered his enthusiasm for the war with Holland.
Buckingham took his seat in the House for the new session on 4 Feb. after which he was present on 63 per cent of all sitting days. On 1 Mar. he was nominated to the sub-committee (of eight peers) appointed to consider a vote of thanks to the king, from which he reported the same day and he was then one of three ordered to wait on the king to discover when the House might attend him. He was then named to a further three committees during the remainder of the session, which was dominated by criticism of the conduct of the war and by consideration of the Declaration of Indulgence
During the summer of 1673, Colbert reported that York and Buckingham had become linked with Clifford and Lauderdale, amid rumours of Arlington being eclipsed by Buckingham’s former client, Sir Thomas Osborne, who succeeded as lord treasurer that year.
In July it was rumoured that Buckingham would quit his post of master of the horse and be replaced by Monmouth. The choice of Monmouth as his replacement was in itself a disappointment as Buckingham was said to have preferred the claims of ‘Don Carlos(’ Charles Fitzcharles, earl of Plymouth), the king’s bastard by Catherine Pegge.
Buckingham took his seat in the new session on 27 Oct. 1673 and attended on one further occasion before the brief 4-day session was prorogued. In spite of reports of Buckingham’s retirement to the country and desire to break with the French, he continued to offer his services in return for substantial funds. These he undertook would be used to purchase members to support his faction in Parliament.
In the run-up to the opening of the new session in January 1674, Buckingham seems to have decided that Parliament’s suspicion of the French alliance needed to be met head-on. Writing to the French king, de Ruvigny reported Buckingham’s claim that he had ‘already won influential people to your majesty’s cause’, and the assurance of ‘his emissaries’ that ‘the town of London says loudly that if you do not act against religion and the freedom of England there would be nothing more advantageous for it than your alliance.’
I am sure I have lost as much Estate as some men have gotten; (and that is a big word). I am honest, and when I appear otherwise, I desire to die. I am not the man that has gotten by all this; yet after all this I am a grievance: I am the cheapest grievance this house ever had; and so I humbly ask the pardon of the House for the trouble I have given.Works of his grace, George Villiers, late duke of Buckingham, 2 vols, (1715), i. 198.
Buckingham saved himself from impeachment, but the Commons nevertheless resolved to request the king that he strip Buckingham of his employments, and remove him from his own presence and counsels, though in their debates it was acknowledged that the duke’s post of master of the horse was a freehold as he had it by purchase and recognized that he might need to be compensated for being forced to part with it.
Once more Buckingham thought of retiring to France, though Ruvigny attempted to dissuade him, ‘because of the difficulties there would be in giving him all the treatment he could wish for.’
Prevented from seeing out his days in France, in March, Buckingham determined to retire to his estates in Yorkshire instead.
The ‘Country’ Opposition: 1675-8
Buckingham returned from his sojourn in the country to take his seat in the House on 13 Apr. 1675, determined to take a leading role in the opposition developing against Danby and his alliance with the Church. Present on 93 per cent of all sitting days, he joined with Shaftesbury and Halifax in speaking against the passage of the non-resisting test act promoted by Danby. In the epic account of the fight against the Test associated with the earl of Shaftesbury and probably written by John Locke, the Letter from a Person of Quality, Buckingham was praised as ‘general of the party’ opposing the bill; Baxter wrote of him as having been one of those to have spoken best on the issue; and Andrew Marvell after the end of the session described to a friend how ‘never were poor men exposed and abused, all the session, as the bishops were by the duke of Buckingham upon the Test; never the like, nor so infinitely pleasant: and no men were ever grown so odiously ridiculous’. Marvell would later, in his Account of the Growth of Popery, singled out Shaftesbury and Buckingham as between them doing as much as all the other opponents of the bill put together. Buckingham subscribed to all of the protests against the bill: on 21 Apr. against the resolution that the non-resisting bill did not encroach upon the privileges of the Lords; on 26 Apr. against the bill’s committal to the whole House; three days later against the resolution that the previous protest had reflected on the honour of the House. During the debates in committee on 30 Apr. he treated the House to a speech of ‘eloquent and well-placed nonsense’ to demonstrate the absurdity of the oath being proposed; and four days later, he subscribed to the fourth protest, at the resolution to include Members of Parliament and Lords within the scope of the bill’s first enacting clause.
During the autumn 1675 session, Buckingham remained a prominent figure in the country opposition, apparently in close concert with Shaftesbury. Having taken his seat in the House on 13 Oct. 1675, he was then present on just over three quarters of all sitting days. On 14 Oct. he was named to the committee for the bill to explain the bill concerning Popish recusants. Excused at a call on 10 Nov, he resumed his seat the following day and on 16 Nov. he announced to the House that he intended to introduce a bill to ease the lot of Protestant dissenters, closely relating his arguments to the right to liberty and property:
It is certainly a very uneasy kind of life to any man, that has either christian charity, good nature, or humanity, to see his fellow subjects daily abused, divested of their liberties and birth-rights, and miserably thrown out of their possessions and free-holds, only because they cannot agree with others in some opinions and niceties of religion, which their consciences will not give them leave to consent to, and, which even by the consent of those who would impose them, are no way necessary to salvation.
Two Speeches. I. The Earl of Shafsbury’s Speech… II. The D. of Buckingham’s Speech (1675), 13.
In the heated atmosphere arising out of the disputes between Lords and Commons over Sherley v. Fagg, it is perhaps surprising that Buckingham did not apparently become embroiled in the arguments that erupted on 20 Nov. between several members of the House, though he joined with Shaftesbury in seconding the motion put forward by Shaftesbury’s associate Charles Mohun, 3rd Baron Mohun, for an address to the king for Parliament to be dissolved.
The French had, for the moment, written Buckingham off as a useful ally: in the middle of the autumn session Ruvigny confided to the French king that little ‘except shows of spirit’ could be hoped for at the moment from its handful of usual allies, particularly Buckingham, ‘who is so involved in the cabal of the best minds in the Lords who are called the confederates, that he dare not act in another manner for fear of being discovered and of losing by this means the belief that these men have in him.’
Buckingham was reported to have suffered ‘a generous fit’ of the gout at the opening of 1677.
In contrast to his triumphal march to the Tower in 1667, Buckingham now appears to have attracted little sympathy from the London citizenry.
Despite their joint action in February and their joint incarceration, Buckingham was reckoned merely ‘worthy’ by Shaftesbury in the latter’s assessment in May.
Following his release, Buckingham considered taking a house in St James’s. As early as 2 Aug. it was said that the king and he had been ‘very merry’ one night at Rochester’s lodgings, where Buckingham was then staying, and there was speculation that he would soon be returned to favour and even restored to office as lord steward. Although it was later reported that his enemies had ensured that he was once more forbidden the court, in mid-November he was nevertheless said to have dined with the king again, this time at Nell Gwynne’s residence.
When the House reassembled on 28 Jan. 1678, an attempt by the lord chancellor to protest at the release from the Tower of three of the peers (Wharton, Salisbury and Buckingham) without making satisfaction to the House was curtailed by Berkshire interrupting and seeking to deliver a petition from Buckingham, in which he offered his submission and desired to be readmitted to his place.
By early February 1678 Buckingham was said to be back in favour. It was reported that he had been seen walking in the park with the king and later that month, it was noted that he was once more in frequent attendance at court.
Following the brief prorogation in May which provided the opportunity to conclude a settlement with France, Buckingham took his seat in the new session on 23 May 1678, of which he attended 58 per cent of all sitting days. On 5 June both his and Robert Danvers’ counsel were heard concerning the Purbeck viscountcy, but debate was then adjourned to the following Friday. Ten days later, Buckingham complained to the House of a paper containing information ‘scandalous to the memory of his father and the honour of his family’, which he accused Danvers of writing. Danvers refused to answer the charge and was ordered to withdraw. The following month, on 5 July, Buckingham registered his dissent at the resolution to ascertain the relief of the petitioner in the cause Darrell v. Whichcot.
By the middle of the summer, it was believed that Buckingham would shortly be sent abroad as an ambassador (though details of the embassy remained unclear).
The Popish Plot and the Crisis, 1678-81
Buckingham returned to the House for the autumn, and final session of the Parliament on 22 Oct. 1678, of which he attended approximately two thirds of all sitting days. Towards the end of the month, complaint was made to the House once again of a breach of his privilege, when it was related how one of his servants, Robert Feilding, had been arrested by one of the Westminster bailiffs even though Feilding was in possession of Buckingham’s protection.
Buckingham was an active in several of the committees investigating the Plot, demonstrating the kind of nervous energy with which he could occasionally turn his mind to business, although Buckingham’s interest in prosecuting the plot stemmed from his desire to tap the popular mood rather from the kind of convinced anti-catholicism that drove some of his allies at the time, especially Shaftesbury and Monmouth. On 23 Oct. Buckingham was named to the committee appointed to examine papers relating to the conspiracy and the following day to the committee for examining constables. On 28 Oct. he was instrumental in the decision to appoint a sub-committee to examine witnesses concerning the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey and was also to the fore in nominating other members to sit on the committee with him, among them Shaftesbury and Halifax.
Buckingham was named a reporter of the conference for the preservation of the king’s person on 1 Nov. 1678 and on 26 Nov. he was named to the committee considering the bill for raising the militia. Two days later, he was successful in moving the House on behalf of the earls of Dorset (as Middlesex had since become) and Pembroke, who had been arrested following a quarrel, but who had now agreed to be reconciled and the House accordingly ordered the two men to be released.
After the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament Buckingham actively employed his interest on behalf of opposition candidates in the elections of February/March 1679 for the new assembly. He was said at this point to be in constant contact with Shaftesbury and Monmouth, though the relationship would break down over the course of the year, with Shaftesbury suspicious of Buckingham’s tendency to look to France and Buckingham of Shaftesbury’s sponsorship of Monmouth.
In March, however, Buckingham performed one of his by now habitual disappearing acts, and was absent from public view for the next two months, and thus from the first two months of the new Parliament.
Following the close of the Parliament, Buckingham was again active in the elections of August 1679. At the end of July both Buckingham and John Lovelace, 3rd Baron Lovelace, had appeared in support of Sir Ralph Verney at the Abingdon assizes, where Verney had a lawsuit pending, and the following month it was reported that Buckingham had at last found his old client, Wildman, a safe seat at Abingdon.
Buckingham’s hyper-activity at the elections had at least again aroused the king’s irritation. There were rumours that he had been involved in more than just electioneering, at least during the king’s serious illness of late August, which brought James back from exile. A story that Buckingham, Shaftesbury and Radnor (as Robartes had since become) had plotted to promote Monmouth as heir but that they had been rebuffed when they attempted to recruit Oxford to their cause may have assumed more than actually happened; but Buckingham certainly held conversations with Monmouth’s lieutenant, Sir Thomas Armstrong, concerning an attempt to take control of the London common council.
There was clearly not enough evidence to proceed against Buckingham, though a series of moves against him in early 1680 were clearly coordinated. At the beginning of 1680, he, Lovelace and Thomas Wharton were all put out of the Buckinghamshire commission of the peace, and over the ensuing weeks, Buckingham was removed as a justice in practically every county to which he had previously been appointed. In February reports circulated of accusations being levelled against him by a variety of witnesses, including his erstwhile associate, Colonel Blood.
Buckingham was unwell in the autumn. Although on 12 Oct. it was reported that he had recovered ‘with the help of the Jesuits’ powder’, when the new Parliament was finally allowed to sit on 21 Oct. he was absent and he was still noted as missing at a call of the House on 30 October.
At about the same time as the verdict on Stafford the sheriff of London and Buckingham’s political ally, Slingsby Bethel, provocatively exercised his right to propose him to be free of the City.
Buckingham’s activities in the elections to the Exclusion Parliaments appear to have lost him the king’s friendship once and for all. Cold-shouldered at court, Buckingham persisted in his efforts to court the city of London instead. He then spent the summer continuing to pursue his enemies. In June, Edward Christian, who had been found guilty of conspiring against Buckingham the previous year, appealed to Danby for his assistance, being fearful that Buckingham intended to proceed against him for scandalum magnatum. The following month, in spite of his former undertakings to the contrary, Buckingham initiated proceedings against Howard for non-payment of the £1,000 damages that had been awarded against him.
Impotence and decline
In the aftermath of the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament Buckingham himself might have felt under threat. In June 1681, Danby wrote to the king warning of the role played by Whittaker, Buckingham’s former solicitor, ‘if not his master also’ in a conspiracy against the crown.
By then, however, Buckingham had become rarely mentioned and politically irrelevant. At the beginning of 1683, he was said to be engaged in talks with Monmouth and Halifax about forging a new alliance.
During the summer of 1683, Buckingham became engaged in a case with his kinsman, Rutland (as Lord Roos had since become), over the collection of tithes at Helmsley, though it was not until the following year that the cause came to trial at king’s bench. Buckingham attended the trial in person but then proceeded to sabotage his own case by openly mocking his counsel and suggesting that the man had been poorly briefed.
Although Buckingham had all but retired from court life and retreated to his northern estates by the time of the king’s death, there were still occasional rumours during the final years of Charles II’s reign of his return to favour. In 1681 it was reported that he might go to France as ambassador and three years later there was talk of him taking up the office of viceroy in the West Indies.
Buckingham took his seat in the new Parliament on 23 May 1685, after which he was present on 65 per cent of all sitting days. He seems to have played no part, on either side, during the Monmouth rebellion and there is little reason to believe that he would have welcomed a Monmouth victory. While his relations with James II had frequently been strained, Buckingham was informed the following year by William Penn that James was now ‘so changed in his opinion of his [Buckingham’s] ability to serve him, that he desires it’ and how the king ‘was not willing it should be thought he had not more esteem for the duke of Buckingham than a mere indifference.’
The remainder of Buckingham’s life appears to have been a steady physical decline. Reports circulated in early March 1687 that he had fallen seriously ill while staying on his estates in Yorkshire. Although he rallied a fortnight later and was expected back in London, rumours spread of his demise at York early in April.
In spite of last minute efforts made by his kinsmen to persuade him to settle his affairs, Buckingham died intestate and with no legitimate heir. It was also speculated that Buckingham had died a Catholic, though this was contradicted by reports that he had been prevailed upon by his relatives, among them James Hamilton, styled earl of Arran [S] (later 4th duke of Hamilton [S] and Brandon), to receive the sacrament from an Anglican clergyman prior to his death.
By the time of his death, the world in which Buckingham had flourished had all but evaporated. Most of his associates and principal rivals (with the exception of Danby) had either died or retreated into retirement or exile. Buckingham’s commitment to the causes he championed has usually been regarded with scepticism, but that should not detract from their significance. In the commonplace book once thought to have been his but still believed to reflect some of his views, under the entry for politician the writer noted of such a person, ‘he puts men into places, as they do stones into slings, only to fling them out again’: a telling perception of Buckingham’s own experience.