murder most foul
David Wilkie Wynfield, ‘Death of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham’, 1871. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Image via NGA.
I was lucky enough to sneak into the ANZAMEMS 2022 conference for a delightful panel on 'Family Monuments and Early Modern Memory'. Megan Shaw (@yorkhousearchive and @MeganRShaw) gave an excellent paper on the cultivation of memory by her lady, Katherine Villiers, Duchess of Buckingham. She featured this painting dramatising the assassination of Kate's husband, George Villers, Duke of Buckingham.
While staying in Portsmouth, the Duke left his lodgings for the day on 23 August 1628, only to be stabbed by a disgruntled army officer. He reportedly lived long enough to yell "villain" at his assailant before collapsing. Wynfeild's painting shows the Duke's body outstretched in a richly decorated interior. His expression is peaceful — an idealised image of death as sleep. On the landing, the Countess of Anglesey comforts his grieving wife, still in her nightdress, while the murder weapon lies in the bottom left corner. The work was painted some 200 years after the assassination, indicating the kind of mythology surrounding the Duke as a royal favourite, notoriously disliked courtier and reportedly smoking hot individual.
Black & Hopwood, published by Rudolph Ackermann, after Mackenzie, ‘George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham Tomb in Westminster Abbey’, 1812. Aquatint. © National Portrait Gallery, London. Image via NPG.
The Duke's body was later taken to London and buried at Westminster Abbey with a highly elaborate monument commissioned by his widow (pictured). On a much weirder note, his sister, Countess of Denbigh erected an additional memorial to him in Portsmouth. The epitaph reads:
"…To such a man, born to everything of greatest worth, Susanna, his sister, Countess of Denbigh, in tears and everlasting grief, erected this monument in the year 1631. His bowels, together with hers, are buried here…"
Interring bowels as a commemorative act has to sit pretty high up the list of 'weird ways to honour a loved one.'
You can find Megan @yorkhousearchive and @MeganRShaw, where she chronicles her travels and discoveries. I learned so much about Villier's tomb and Kate's clever patronage from her talk. Later this year, she's off to the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, where she will complete archival research for her doctoral thesis on Kate — plus, she's promised to find out what the heck is going on with the sibling bowels situation.
