Sir George Villiers and Lady Katherine Manners as Adonis and Venus
by DYCK, Sir Anthony van, Oil on canvas, 223.5 x 160 cm.
George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, also called Sir George Villiers, (1592-1628), was a royal favourite and statesman who virtually ruled England during the last years of King James I and the first years of the reign of Charles I. He was extremely unpopular, and the failure of his aggressive, erratic foreign policy increased the tensions that eventually exploded in the Civil War between the royalists and the parliamentarians.