The Scapegoat The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham
The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham by Lucy Hughes-Hallett, published by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2024, offers a detailed exploration of George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham. This biography delves into Buckingham’s rise and fall as a favored confidant of King James I and later Charles I, highlighting his significant influence in seventeenth-century England. The book spans 688 pages and is presented in English, providing readers with an in-depth look at a pivotal figure in royal and political life during the Stuart Era.
In this account, Hughes-Hallett vividly portrays a world filled with political intrigue, lavish court life, and complex social dynamics, including themes of gender-fluidity and same-sex desire. The narrative captures the essence of an era marked by both cultural flourishing and societal upheaval, as Buckingham navigates a landscape rife with witch hunts and emerging public opinion. Through a blend of historical detail and narrative flair, The Scapegoat examines the tumultuous events that shaped Buckingham’s life and legacy, making it a significant contribution to the fields of biography and historical literature.
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Winner of the Plutarch Award
Winner of the Publishing Triangle’s Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction
Shortlisted for the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize
From the winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize, an extraordinary history of the meteoric rise and fall of George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham.
As King James I’s favorite, Buckingham was also his confidant, gatekeeper, advisor 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 skillful 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 Descartian rationality 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, The Scapegoat navigates love, war-fever and pacifism in a society on the brink of cataclysmic change. In this immersive and authoritative account, Hughes-Hallett summons an era that still resonates today.
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