God's Fury, England's Fire_ A New History of the English Civil Wars - Michael J. Braddick [27]
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Self-Government at the King's Command
Politics and Society in Caroline England
On the face of it Charles’s English subjects were more reconciled to his rule when the Prayer Book rebellion broke out than they had been a decade earlier. In the late 1620s a number of interrelated grievances had reached a public climax, in parliaments, alehouses and presses. The main target of this discontent was the King’s favourite, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.
On 23 August 1628 the duke was in Portsmouth preparing an expedition to aid the French Protestants in La Rochelle, then besieged by Catholic forces. Between nine and ten o’clock in the morning, having taken breakfast with ‘men of quality and action’, he left the chamber where he had eaten, intending to take his carriage to see the King. In a small passageway outside the chamber, however, he was stabbed by John Felton. The blow was so quick that those around the duke did not see it. Villiers himself said only one word, ‘villain’, before plucking the knife from his wound. In fact, those around him thought that it was a fit of ‘apoplexy’, until, that is, they saw the blood gushing from the duke’s mouth. Felton was probably motivated by bitter experience of service under the duke, whose influence over the King and conduct of the military campaigns were widely resented. The parliament of 1626 had prepared charges against Buckingham, intending to impeach him as responsible for a number of perceived acts of misgovernment. However, in killing Buckingham, Felton effectively sacrificed his own life ‘for the honour of God, his King and country’.1
Felton had obviously expected to die in the act of committing the murder, and for that reason had sewn a note explaining his actions into his hat. The note has not survived, but the various accounts of what it said agree on the main points. The fullest reads:
That man is cowardly base and deserves not the name of a gentleman or soldier that is not willing to sacrifice his life for the honour of his God, his king and his country. Let no man commend me for doing it, but rather discommend themselves as the cause of it, for if God had not taken away our hearts for our sins he would not have gone so long unpunished.2
Felton’s claim, then, was that this assassination – of the King’s favourite in the midst of military preparations – was a godly and patriotic act, and one intended for the service of the King.
Felton could have escaped following the murder, since in the surprise no-one tried to stop him. Indeed no-one seems to have known who had struck the blow, and while people rushed to help the duke and to secure the gates and the ramparts of the town, Felton was able to walk to the nearby kitchen unmolested. As a group of soldiers went through the house calling out for the ‘villain’ and ‘butcher’, Felton, drawing his sword, stepped out ‘amongst them, saying boldly, “I am the man, here I am” ’. It was only hasty action by some of those present that prevented him being killed there and then.3
Following his capture Felton explained that he was owed £80 for previous military service and had been passed over for command of his company, but he also claimed to be acting for the Protestant religion. Significantly, too, he said that while ‘reading the Remonstrance of the House of Parliament it came into his mind, that in committing the act of killing the Duke he should do his country good service’.4 In all then, Felton’s was a premeditated, political act, in the commission of which he claimed some legitimacy, even perhaps a degree of parliamentary sanction. According to one eyewitness he said, ‘God have mercy on thy soul’ as he struck the fatal blow.5 It