Duke of Buckingham
Assassinated on 23 August 1628 at Portsmouth by the discharged army officer John Felton; the favorite of two kings died blamed for failed wars.
Overview
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, rose from minor gentry to be the dominant favorite of James I and Charles I, controlling patronage and policy. His naval expeditions against Spain and France, against Cadiz in 1625 and the Ile de Re in 1627, ended in disaster and helped force the unpopular Petition of Right in 1628. John Felton, a passed-over lieutenant who had been wounded at Re and was owed pay, read the parliamentary denunciations of the duke, bought a tenpenny knife, and stabbed him in a hallway of the Greyhound Inn as he set out for another expedition. Felton was hanged, proclaiming no accomplices. The murder freed parliament of its chief enemy but not the crown from the conflicts that became the civil war.
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