George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1592 - 1628). George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, 28 August 1592-23 August 1628, was an English courtier, statesman, and patron of the arts. He was a favourite and possibly also a lover of King James I of England. Despite a patchy political and military record, Buckingham remained at the height of royal favour for the first three years of the reign of King Charles I, until a disgruntled army officer assassinated him. Villiers was born in Brooksby, Leicestershire, on 28 August 1592, the son of the minor gentleman Sir George Villiers. His mother Mary, daughter of Anthony Beaumont of Glenfield, Leicestershire, widowed early, educated her son for a courtier's life. She sent him to travel in France with John Eliot. Villiers took to the training set by his mother: he could dance and fence well, spoke a little French, and overall became an excellent student. Godfrey Goodman 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. In August 1614 at age twenty-one, Villiers caught the eye of James I at a hunt in Apethorpe. Opponents of the king's favourite Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, saw an opportunity to displace him and began promoting Villiers. 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. 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. Under the king's patronage Villiers advanced rapidly through the ranks of the nobility, and his court appointments grew in importance. In 1615 he was knighted as a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. In 1616, when he was made the King's Master of Horse, he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Whaddon, Viscount Villiers, and made a Knight of the Garter. The next year he was made Earl and in 1618 promoted Marquess of Buckingham, then finally in 1623 Duke of Buckingham. Villiers' new rank allowed him to dance side by side with the royal heir Charles I, with whom his friendship developed through his tutoring of the prince in dance. Villiers was appointed Lord Admiral of the Fleet in 1619, and in 1623 the former dukedom of Buckingham was recreated for him when he was negotiating abroad on the king's behalf. Since reductions in the peerage had taken place during the Tudor period, Buckingham was now the highest-ranking subject outside the royal family as the only duke in England. Villiers was the last in a succession of handsome young favourites on whom the king lavished affection and patronage, although the personal relationship between the two has been much debated. James's nickname for Buckingham was Steenie, after St. Stephen who was said to have had the face of an angel. Speaking to the Privy Council in 1617, James tried to clarify the situation in the face of rumours: You may be sure that I love the Earl of Buckingham more than anyone else, and more than you who are here assembled. I wish to speak in my own behalf and not to have it thought to be a defect, for Jesus Christ did the same, and therefore I cannot be blamed. Christ had John, and I have George. Historian David M. Bergeron claims Buckingham became James's last and greatest lover citing flowery letters that followed 17th century styles of masculinity. Other scholars say there was no physical sodomy, and note that the king's many enemies never accused him of sodomy. 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 reciprocated the King's affections, writing back to James: I naturally so love your person, and adore all your other parts, which are more than ever one man had, I desire only to live in the world for your sake and I will live and die a lover of you. Buckingham himself provides ambiguous evidence, writing to James many years later that he had pondered whether you loved me nowbetter 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. Speculation about the close relationship between king and favourite was not confined to the kingdom, moreover.