#portraits of steenie

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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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9/xx Daniel Mytens, George Villiers Duke of Buckingham c1619-1634, Royal Museums Greenwich.

As much as I mock George’s military pretensions; it would be wrong of me to not point out that these failures were not completely his fault.

Early modern militaries, much like their modern counterparts, were at best like herding cats; and at worst, a very expensive exercise in futility.

James’s peace policy, even if it spare his kingdoms some of the worst excesses of the wars on the continent, nonetheless had a downside. The English and Scottish militaries had already been fragile; England especially - Scotland had a stronger mercenary tradition to make up the shortfall of skills and expertise.

Peace and the winding up of meaningful military campaigns against peer competitors (Ireland was more a colonial border war and was in no sense a substitute) meant what little skills and experience there was disappeared with time, and the financial and institutional infrastructure needed to undertake and finance major campaigns simply wasn’t there. Amphibious campaigns were particularly risky as navies were even more skill and finance intensive than armies.

Feudal levies were long gone but standing professional armies were both too politically suspect and too expensive in this period meaning the militia was the army (imagine your military being entirely reservists).

George was in effect having to build a military from scratch with antiquated financing. There were no regular taxes on the scale needed - parliament voted subsidies and the king was supposed to use his private income to make up the shortfall. George had to dip into his own private finances for the planned 1628 expedition.

When things went wrong with these campaigns, more often than not it wasn’t due to poor decisions on George’s part as a commander. It was systemic problems like a lack of discipline with regular soldiers, over cautious if not outright cowardly officers, poor logistics, and bad intelligence. These are things that take a long time to develop and build and the space of 3/4 years George had to prepare simply was not enough time to address these underlying issues.

Even though his campaigns ended badly and he should have known better than to be so hubristic, the fact they were able to scrape together something halfway useful was an achievement in itself.

The fact that the Essex, Wimbledon, and a number of other commanders had the same problems as George is proof of this. Look, even Oliver Cromwell fell into this trap with his “western design”, so maybe we should cut George some slack already.

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5/xx George on horseback possibly with Portsmouth behind him. Printer and location unknown. Possibly an 18th century print judging from the text and its frame.

After George and Charles returned from Spain in October 1623, as part of his push for war against Spain, to capitalise on his new popularity and shed his public image of a pampered catamite; George commissioned a barrage of print propaganda portraying himself as a Protestant war lord and great magnate.

Despite the intensity and volume of this, I think it’s safe to say it didn’t really work.

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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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2/xx A (possibly satirical?) print of George Villiers Duke of Buckingham at the siege of Rhe. The pose is modelled on a series of prints based on an engraved series of Standard Bearers by the Dutch artist Hendrik Goltzius. National Portrait Gallery, 1630s?

The text says:

This plate hath been many years preserved in a great persons closet. The most noble George villiers Duke of Buckingham stabbed by Felton 1629[sic] Aged 36 years. He was a great favourite of KJames and KCharles I. Sold by Benj Cole, Bear Lane.

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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.