George Villiers Survives the Assassination Attempt

[DaleCoz]

Villiers was an interesting figure, handsome and capable of extraordinary feats of self-promotion. He was also apparently personally corrupt and rather inept as a military leader. He became King James I of England’s closest adviser, in a relationship that was rumored to go beyond friendship, though there was apparently no solid evidence of that and the allegations are disputed by some scholars.

He built up a huge power base for himself and his family and friends in Ireland and managed to gain leadership of several important military expeditions, many of which became fiascos.

Despite the fiascos, he retained his power under Charles I, but was assassinated by a disgruntled survivor of one of the military expeditions that he led. He was in his mid- thirties at the time of the assassination (1628), and while he was still popular in royal circles, he had become unpopular enough in the rest of the country that his assassin became a hero in some public circles.

Parliament tried to impeach him twice and was dissolved each time.

So what would have happened if the assassination attempt failed? Presumably he would have retained political favor with King Charles and would have continued his corrupt, incompetent ways. How would that have played into the lead-up to the English Civil War? Would it have weakened popular support for Charles and led to a shorter civil war or would it have deflected popular anger to the Duke, making him the focus of popular anger rather than the king?

And an absurd, disastrous spin-off of the above: George Vilnius Captures the Spanish Treasure Fleet: Historically, the Duke led an attempt to capture a scheduled Spanish treasure fleet in the late 1620s. Like almost all of his efforts outside court circles, it turned into a fiasco, with Spanish intelligence learning of the plan and almost casually routing around the English.

The Dutch pulled off a capture a few years later. Let’s say that somehow—sheer luck overcoming incompetence or a competent subordinate who doesn’t get the credit, the Duke pulls it off, returning in triumph with wealth, prestige and increased influence in the Royal court.

Enough of the treasure flows into the king’s hands that he can operated independently of parliament for a while, and he does. And I’m pretty sure that somewhere along the way, the wheels come off very badly for England. Maybe Charles uses his windfall to get England more heavily involved in the Thirty Years War, then raging on the continent. Maybe he extends personal rule longer, pushing more Puritans and other dissidents to head for New England and other parts of the New World to escape his rule.

Maybe that leads, down the road, to an earlier independence for at least New England.

 

[Alex Richards]

Have you been reading my notes for the next Thirty Years War Article?

Assuming Buckingham doesn't have the latter success and just survives 1628, I'd expect him to end up taking command of another military expedition to support protestants on the continent. Historically the Marquis of Hamilton led a force of 6,000 to North Germany in support of Sweden in 1631, which failed abysmally (not least because the promise had been of 20,000). I can quite easily see Buckingham taking command of this, sailing off to the continent and doing his usual ham-fisted job of it. Best case scenario for Charles in this situation is that the Duke is one of the casualties of war and can at least be spun as a martyr for the cause.

More likely we get a repeat of the impeachment-prorogation debacles and domestic tensions ratchet up further.

If Buckingham's still around in the late 1630s/early 1640s I'd expect he's still visibly being supported despite his incompetence which will likely cause problems for Charles in getting support- not least because Buckingham will almost certainly demand some sort of command in any open conflict. I can easily see some of his historic supporters basically telling Charles that he needs to sideline the Duke or they're going to stay neutral.

 

[TR1996]

Potentially affects the Charles/Henrietta Maria marriage dynamics? I think they only really became close after Bucky's assassination.

 

[Alex Richards]

Potentially affects the Charles/Henrietta Maria marriage dynamics? I think they only really became close after Bucky's assassination.

They were pretty much openly feuding during the whole 'your friend is currently leading ships to attack my father's armies' bit.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

It is it bad that my first thought was to wonder how this changes the plot of The Three Musketeers?

 

[heraclius]

Buckingham's killing was a the act of a 'lone wolf' assassin with a grudge, an impoverished junior officer called Felton who was furious that he had not been promoted (and was s hort of cash and being harassed for debt) and obsessively blamed the Duke. as his commander, for this. There was already widespread hatred of the Duke for his supposed extravagance, incompetence, and sinister influence on the King and wild talk about how his death would do the country good, and Felton latched onto this. In the chaos and muddle of preparations at Portsmouth for the immanent sailing of a fleet under Buckingham in a second attempt to relieve the Huguenot rebels in La Rochelle, it was comparitively easy to get into the Duke's inn with other officers who had more right to be there, then join in the huddle of aides as he came downstairs in the morning and stab him. B was bending down in an exchange of courtly bows with a new arrival and did not even see him; nor did the witnesses identify who had done it in the 'crush' until Felton gave himself up. Had Buckingham had more spacious accomodation (in a bigger private house?) or had he taken notice of the current threats in anonymous pamphlets to kill him and had guards while out in public, he would not have been attacked or the killer would have been caught as he lunged. Or B could have worn thick, stab-proof clothes as his security-conscious first patron King James VI and I habitually did for court appearances.

Buckingham was not a very capable strategist or planner,though he had done his best to sort out the corrupt and badly-run Navy as Lord Admiral and had poured his own money into it, and his first attempt to relieve the rebels in La Rochelle was a shambolic failure. This was due to endemic lack of serious training for the officers or men and poor planning, including a lack of adequate artillery or weapons or enough ammunition, rather than his mistakes, and he was personally brave and led from the front. Had he survived to lead the third expedition there in Sept 1628 it was unlikely to have succeeded against the
well-organised and led siege commanded by Cardinal Richelieu, though the Duke was unlikely to have been as timid as his OTL replacement the Earl of Lindsey who decided attacking was futile and quickly turned for home. Buckingham had considered offering France a peace-treaty if they would accept the Huguenots having the autonomy of their regional towns, including La R, from French govt control and military rule guaranteed - but ending that was the whole point of the war so the Cardinal and Louis XIII had no incentive to agree with the English stymied and La R running out of food. The expedition would have had to withdraw and England to come to a reluctant agreement to end the war, abandoning the Huguenots, as in real life - and that would make the already unpopular Duke even more hated.

But as long as Charles stood by him Parliament could do nothing except refuse the King money and pass critical motions, and as in OTL March 1629 they would have ended up dissolved. In real life the King was so shocked at the assassination and so furious at the jubilant reaction in Parliament and in the streets - Felton was treated as a national hero and celebrated in print - that at the least it embittered his attitude towards MPs and the idea of courting public popularity, with long-term results seen in his attitudes in 1640-2 leading up to the Civil War. As in real life he would have had to agree peace with France and Spain to cut costs as he dissolved Parliament and have abandoned a naval war, but unlike him B was strongly interested in a Continental war on the Habsburgs to get the confiscated Palatinate back from them for Charles' sister Elizabeth the 'Winter Queen' and her husband Elector Frederick (Prince Rupert's parents). Charles had initially agreed with B in 1624-5 that this needed pressurising Spain by war, hence the current Anglo-Spanish war, but once war broke out with France too in 1626 gave up on this. In the 1630s he was to try to charm Philip IV of Spain (whose sister he had once sought as a wife in person, with B in attendance, in 1623)) as a potential ally into agreeing to talk the Emperor Ferdinand, P's cousin, into handing the Palatinate back; this was ignored as Spain did not need or fear him.

Using war and making England a military nuisance to the Habsburgs until they gave in was more likely to succeed, and B had plans to ally with Charles' uncle King Christain of Denmark to invade N Germany and attack Habsburg interests there; this would also entail alliance with the Habsburgs' French foes who often used N German Protestant allies against the Emperor. Charles did not have the will, interest, or money to do this in real life and wavered between a French and a Spanish alliance until 1640; if B with his expansion of and interest in the navy is in charge as Charles' top minister in this period a French alliance and some English action on the Continent with the Danes (or even Gustavus Adolphus in 1630-2) is likelier. If B is back in France around 1631-2 negotiating with Louis XIII and Richelieu, he would have to make sure there was no repeat of his apparent flirting with Queen Anne of Austria in 1625, as made use of by Alexandre Dumas in the Musketeers books! (The Three Musketeers and D'Artagnan were in the siege of La Rochelle in the original books and the Michael York / Christopher Lee film version.)

Given the poor quality troops and supplies that hindered them in the 1620s, a major overhaul of the army (and hopefully some extra money for it if the English fleet strikes lucky and captures some Spanish treasure ships en route to Europe) would be needed first. B does employ some good officers and administrators in the 1620s who later go on to serve Charles in the 1630s, and in 1628-9 the future top efficient and ruthless administrator Thomas Wentworth abandons the opposition MPs to work for Charles. Him and B working together plus some luck in a naval campaign (not guaranteed as even Elizabeth I's and Cromwell's top naval officers sometimes missed their target treasure fleets) could produce a worthy if fairly minor addition to the Protestant cause in the 30 Years War in the 1630s - and improve B's reputation with the anti-Catholic English public.

I would see the Duke as continuing as an English equivalent of the dominant 'privado' (chief minister cum favourite) the Count-Duke of Olivares in Philip IV's Spain through the 1630s, and given his earlier political alliance with some 'Puritan' preachers to try to coax MPs into supporting him he would probably be more cautious than Charles about employing hard-line and persecutory conservative Anglican reformists like Laud and purging dissident clerics from the Church. This might lessen the danger of a religious confrontation in England around 1640, if not in Scotland given that C and B were both centralisers who would not have royal authority defied. Charles seemed to 'come of age' politically and start thinking for himself after B was killed, aged nearly 28, so with B alive he might have been more in the background and more interested in religion, his family and art than governing. He would thus seem as shadowy a figure behind a powerful chief minister as Louis XIII does behind Richelieu, but would probably have eventually matured to be devotes to his wife (especially if there was a French alliance) if later than OTL. Also, a surviving B would have continued to host an impressive art collection at his large London home at York House (next to the current Charing Cross Station) and to import more Italian artworks, rather than just the King being the principal patron of this. Arguably he would in due course have been rebuilding a country residence in the latest Palladian style too (his house at Wanstead, or Burley in Rutland near his Manners in-laws ?), provided he had the money, and given Inigo Jones lots more commissions - and hired Bernini to do the sculptures?

But apart from his extravagance, his wife's and mother's being keen Catholics and his tolerant religious views and Catholic friends could easily have kept any future parliaments hostile even if he was waging war on the Empire as an ally of Protestant Sweden plus France. So if we have B showing his Protestant credentials on the battlefield up the Rhine with the French and Swedes, invading the Palatinate to get it back for Charles' sister, do we then have a Dumas novel 200 years later where the Duke and D'Artagnan are fighting on the same side ?