THE SCAPEGOAT

From the winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize an extraordinary story of the meteoric rise and fall of George Villiers the first Duke of Buckingham Lord Buckingham rockets off the page of this gloriously epic seductively detailed biography OLIVIA LAINGAs King James I s favourite Buckingham was also his confidant gatekeeper right hand man and lover When Charles I succeeded his father he was similarly enthralled and made Buckingham his best friend and mentor A dazzling figure on horseback and a skilful player of the political game Buckingham rapidly transformed the influence his beauty gave him into immense wealth and power He became one of the most flamboyant and enigmatic Englishmen at the heart of seventeenth century royal and political life With a novelist s touch Lucy Hughes Hallett transports us into a courtly world of masques and dancing exquisite clothes the art of Rubens and Van Dyck gender fluidity same sex desire and appallingly rudimentary medicine Witch hunts coexisted with Francis Bacon s empiricism and public opinion was becoming a political force Falling from grace spectacularly Buckingham came to represent everything that was wrong with the country From kidnappings and murder plots to men weeping in Parliament over civil liberties