George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was the favourite of King James I - who addressed him as ‘my sweet child and wife’ - and subsequently chief minister to King Charles I. Buckingham was a beauty, and he surrounded himself with beautiful things. He enjoyed exquisite clothes, like the fabulous white silk suit encrusted with diamonds that he wore to visit the Queen of France. He was a superb dancer. When he cut capers during a court masque King James startled visiting ambassadors by shouting out ‘By God, George, I love you!
Lucy Hughes-Hallett is an award-winning author of both fiction and non-fiction, whose book on the 17th century Duke of Buckingham, The Scapegoat, was published in October 2024 and has been shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize. Her previous biography, The Pike; Gabriele d' Annunzio was described in The Sunday Times as ‘the biography of the decade’. It won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Duff Cooper Prize and the Costa Biography Award. Her other non-fiction books include Cleopatra and Heros. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Historical Association, she has written on books and the arts for publications including The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The New Statesman and the TLS. She was Chair of the Judges for the 2021 International Booker Prize.