#portraits of steenie

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15/xx Daniel Dumontsier, Le Duc de Boukinkan, 1625, BN Paris

Another souvenir from George’s trip to Paris in May 1625 for Charles and Henrietta’s proxy wedding. Despite what horrible histories told you, he was not the proxy groom - that was one of Charles’s French cousins.

Although the trip to Paris was a hit socially - the stunt with the Pearl suit had the intended effect and there was a type of hat named after him - but he did not get the guarantees from Richelieu and Louis XIII for a joint campaign against the Habsburg to return the Palatine to Elector Frederick, who was languishing in exile at The Hague with Elizabeth and their vast brood of children.

There were also delays getting out of France due to various people getting ill and delays with papal dispensation and the presentation of papal honours to Henrietta Maria. This led to the first big clash between George and his new queen, and set the antagonistic tone for their working and personal relationship going forward.

However what everyone remembers is the business in the garden at Amiens with Anne. What actually happened is honestly a mystery and there has been a lot of scandal and romantic fantasy surrounding this since. Anne was of course the one who bore the brunt of this - when she was introduced to Cardinal Mazarin years later by Richelieu it was with the words “Madame you’ll like him, he looks just like Buckingham.” This also gave George the nickname “Fuckingham” one both sides of the channel.

Well done George, you only had one job and you couldn’t even do that properly.

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I personally found it very funny that the Villiers name was through his half siblings from his father’s first marriage and not his mother Mary Beaumont who was much the driving force behind their rise as George himself.

Still, they did better than the Boleyns and the Dudley’s so I guess that’s something to be proud of.

I like this pic of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. :) man it's a shame that title didn't continue after his son.

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One of the most beautiful men of my time painted by me!

Portrait of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1592-1628) Here:

And here:

Portrait of George Villiers (1592-1628), Duke of Buckingham 1625 by Anthony van Dyck / studio Rubens (Museum: Pitti Palace)

George villiers was King James' courtsman and lover:

Privately, James’ letters to Buckingham are warm, vulnerable, and revealing. The King called Villiers ‘Steenie’, shortened from St Stephen, who was said to have the face of an angel. He also referred to his favourite as his ‘sweet child’ and ‘wife’. In one letter, Buckingham reminisced about a night spent at Farnham in Surrey, where the two men lay so close together that ‘the bed’s head could not be found between the master and his dog’.

Source for quotations: The King’s Favourite: George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham

@lady-lord-cornbury @angelo-chuck-wagon

[comradenanti]

Sunken cheeks and beestung lips ♧ ♧ ♧ {#art #GCSEart #stephentennant #flowers #vintage #katuhana #portraits #poetry #penandink #watercolour #hues #driedflowers #gcse #1920s #thehonstephentennant #steenie #artwork #finalpiece} (at Hampden Park, Eastbourne)

[theorichardspota]

Place Essay, After Crapalachia

We loved places. Nooks and crannies to tuck ourselves into. Places where we could be kids, or what we thought kids were. Smoke cigarettes and vomit and kiss without being told anything.

Tucker’s father’s house on top of the mountain had an old barn down at the end of the driveway. There was a wooden rung ladder we’d climb to the attic of the barn. I remember it having a worn red carpet on the floor. Dusty, browned, faded. But I don’t think that is true. I think it was wide wooden boards. Tucker would host Boys Night Out, BNO’s, on Friday nights and once I was invited. Or maybe once I was brought along because I was already in the car. Or maybe I woke up in the back of an empty car that had driven there and crawled up the ladder myself. There was no bathroom, a constant problem of the nooks we’d tuck ourselves into. But there was a door and access to the roof. The boys would pee out of the door. Justin was once peed on down below this way.

But one night Griffin had to shit. Griffin always had to shit. Once, he shit his pants on a road trip to Vermont and they had to finish the road trip with Griffin’s shit pants in the back of the car. So, in the attic, Tucker found him a pot. A cooking pot with black plastic handles, can you picture it? The thin tin kind that rice would always burn to the bottom of. And Griffin had diarrhea in that pot on the roof on a Friday night. And then Sean had to puke, and he puked in the same pot but he puked blood and the pot mosaiced into a range of brown and beige and red bodily horror. The pot was left on the roof and it rained. The next time the boys remembered to look for it, the pot had been filled with water and a chipmunk had crawled in and drown.

Tucker’s facebook photo for years was a portrait of him posed next to the pot and the shit and the vomit and the dead chipmunk. Young with a mop of hair and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Almost abstract. Or maybe this was at Sean’s house. Sean’s parents go for a vacation together once every summer and leave Sean and his sister alone in the house. They are gone 8 days. Sean throws a party and calls it “8 crazy nights.” The last time they left, he wanted a topical themed party and filled the basement with sand. We tried to talk him out of it, but the idea was too good. I don’t remember how he got it out, I didn’t help.   

The boys have their own language. Every firefly is a Melvin, and every mosquito is a Winston. The boys used to take soda bottles and put two holes in them. A joint was shoved into one and the other functioned as a carb. By breathing through the mouth hole, we’d fill the bottle with smoke and inhale it all with one deep breath. They called them steenies. I didn’t know this wasn’t everyone’s youth slang. Leaving home felt like learning a new language.

Jed grew up two houses down from Tucker. His house had a detached garage with an attic we called The Lab. The Lab had the same problem as the barn, but it didn’t have a door or a roof. So the boys peed into the corner of the room. Eventually, black mold started growing down the inside of the walls from the amount of liquid they’d evacuated. The Lab is the first place I threw up from drinking too much. The room was full of cigarette smoke, and I had been drinking from an unlabeled handle of clear liquor they had found in the woods. They said the homeless man in town had ditched it there. I threw up into the cardboard box of the thirty of Busch Light and Tucker still drank the last three beers in it. My dry heaving went on for so long and was so rhythmic that the boys made beats to it while I laid on Dylan’s lap. My mom picked me up and I threw up in her Honda Civic then went to work the next morning. She wouldn’t talk to me for the whole weekend. I probably should have gone to the hospital.

Tucker lived in that garage secretly for an entire winter. I wonder if Jed’s mom really didn’t know or if she had given up and turned away from it. I went to sit with him one night. He texted me after midnight and I got out of bed, drove up the mountain. When I got to the garage, he had every item he owned pulled out of his VW Rabbit and set in a grid pattern on the driveway. He was inventorying his entire life. We listened to the “Dirty Dancing” soundtrack while he wrote onto a yellow legal pad and at 3am we drove the fifteen minutes across the border to New York state to buy beers at the gas station, something we couldn’t do in Connecticut.

[image-transcribing-bot]

A Portrait of James I's 'Husband' Has Reappeared in Glasgow "I desire only to live in this world for your sake," the king wrote to him. BY NATASHA FROST _ SEPTEMBER 25, 2017 A LOST PORTRAIT OF THE man whom English king James I referred to as his "husband," "sweet heart," and the one he loved "more than anyone else" has emerged from conservation work and been authenticated, after having been mistaken for a copy for centuries, the BBC reports. George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham, rose to prominence in court after catching the king's eye at a hunt. This 17th-century painting of him, now known to be by the Flemish great Peter Paul Rubens, had been concealed by layers of dirt, as well as later "improvements." In the painting, Villiers is depicted wearing an elaborate lace collar and a sash. He was known for his good looks, and had been described as "the handsomest-bodied man in all of England," with a "lovely complexion." James I lavished attention and care on him, and called him "Steenie" after St. Stephen, who was said to have had the face of an angel. However, whether Villiers and James I were lovers in the modern sense of the word has been a source of some contention. In their letters, James I states how he wept so profusely at their parting, "that I can scarcely see to write." But scholars have argued that such sentiments are not atypical of male friendship in the 17th and 18th centuries. The rumors flared up upon the 2008 discovery of a secret passage in one of the king's homes linking their bedchambers.

I am an image transcribing bot which uses Tesseract OCR to translate images to text. I'm far from perfect and sometimes have seizures, I try my best! | Help keep my meatbag slave alive.

King James I: *builds secret tunnel connecting his room to the room of a man he calls his husband*

Historians: it’s very hard to tell what kind of relationship they would have had, let’s not look at this through a 21st century lens

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4/xx George and (I think) Richelieu, along with their kings, on the cover of a teach yourself French book from 1634. Given he’d been dead for six years, IDK why he’s on the cover. The inclusion of Richelieu is even more baffling.

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10/xx Michiel Janszoon van Mierevelt, George Villiers Duke of Buckingham, 1626, art gallery of South Australia

This portrait probably shows the Pearl suit George is said to have worn to Paris for the proxy wedding of Charles and Henrietta. According to reports the pearls were loosely attached to the suit so they would fall off as he walked - it was apparently quite the sight.

The pearl rope he is wearing was a gift from James and might have originally been Queen Anna’s prior to her death.

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7/xx Anon. George Villiers with family c1627 Royal Collections Trust

Although his attempts at military campaigning and statesmanship were not a success, George can at least take pride in his role as the founder of a dynasty.

Not included in the painting are George’s half siblings from his father’s first marriage to Audrey Saunders.

In the painting from left to right -

Susan Fielding countess of Denbigh (George’s sister)

Katherine Manners Duchess of Buckingham de jure countess of Rutland and later marchioness of Antrim (George’s meal ticket wife)

Mary Villiers later Duchess of Lennox and Richmond (George’s daughter)

Our boy George

Christopher Villiers earl of Angelsey (George’s brother)

Mary Beaumont de jure countess of Buckingham (George’s mother)

John Villiers viscount Purbeck (George’s brother)

Kneeling in front - Mary fielding Duchess of Hamilton holding George jr the second duke.

In the background there is a picture of his father Sir George Villiers (d 1606)

Despite him and Kate’s son dying without an heir, via his brothers and sisters, the Villiers were able to transform themselves from minor Leicestershire gentry into major aristocratic magnates.

The Villiers clan has produced a number of royal favourites such as the notorious Barbara Villiers Duchess of Cleveland (granddaughter of one of George’s brothers), George jr, Elizabeth Villiers (possible mistress of William iii), Frances Villiers countess of Jersey (mistress of George iv); as well as some more respectable members in the 18 and 19th centuries as politicians, military men and a handful of bishops.

The Villiers family are still the earls of jersey today, with UK conservative MP Theresa Villiers being a descendant of one of George’s brothers, among others.

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24/xx Daniel Mytens, George Villiers Duke of Buckingham in Garter Robes, after 1625, RCT

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25/xx Gerrit van Honthorst, George Villiers, c1628, location unknown.

The final painted portrait of George. Cadiz failed. Breda failed. The attempt to relieve La Rochelle has failed. His eldest son has died. Parliament is impeaching him again. The French marriage has backfired. The libels and black propaganda are coming in a veritable flood. Not even the fact the King is still obsessed with him is going to save him.

This is the look of a man who is well and truly fucked, and knows it.

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8/xx Gerrit van Honthorst, the Duke of Buckingham and his family, 1628, royal collections trust.

George and Kate had 4 children:

Mary Villiers (1622-1685) married 1st Lord Herbert, no children. Married 2nd James Stuart Duke of Richmond and Lennox - 2 children.

Charles Villiers (1625-1627) earl of Coventry. Died in infancy.

George Villiers (1627-1687) 2nd Duke of Buckingham married Mary Fairfax (Thomas fairfax’s daughter), no children.

Francis Viliers (1628/9 - 1648) killed in a skirmish at Kingston. Unmarried, no children.

Officially* there are no living direct descendants of George and Kate alive today. All members of the Villiers family are via George’s brothers and half brothers. The Fielding earls of Denbigh are the descendants of George’s sister Susan.

* of course given the antics of George and George Jr who knows what flotsam and jetsam is hanging around the gene pool.

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5/xx Copy of a Van Dyck of George on his death bed at Osterley Park and House. National Collections Trust c1830.

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1/xx George Villiers in Garter Robes by William Larkin c1616 National Portrait Gallery London.

I think this is what they had in mind when casting Nick G in Mary & George.

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21/xx Peter Paul Rubens, Oil Sketch of George Villiers on Horseback, 1625, Kimball Art Museum, Fort Worth TX

Although happy to take his patronage, Rubens didn’t think much of George, thinking him arrogant and capricious, and feeling sorry for Charles. The painting based on this sketch was lost in a fire in 1949 but there are black and white copies as illustrations in some old books. It was probably part of a scheme of decoration for York House, George’s London residence, and also inspired by the Marie de Medici cycle he had seen in Paris that year.

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Anthony van Dyck, The Contenince of Scipio, c1621, Christ Church College, Oxford

This painting of George and Kate, commissioned to commemorate their marriage, is based on a story from Roman history. Scipio was a Roman general in the Punic wars, who refused to take a young Carthaginian woman named Lucretia hostage and instead returned her to her fiancé Allucius who in turn became a Roman ally out of gratitude to the general. Wiki has more info about this and its artistic representation in the early modern period.

Traditionally this painting was said to be commissioned by George to refute the allegations of kidnapping and rape as he is said to represent Allucius the Carthaginian Prince, Kate as Lucretia, and Scipio representing (although not resembling) King James. Below L to R Allucius, Scipio, Lucretia.

Alternatively, it’s also been suggested that Kate was the commissioner of this as part of a programme of public rehabilitation of her husband after his murder in 1628, which would date this later than it’s accepted date of 1621, with Allucius standing in for Charles and Lucretia as Henrietta instead.