BUCKINGHAM, George Villiers, Duics OF, son of the preceding: b. Westminster, 30 Jan. 1628; d. Kirkby Moorside, Yorkshire, 16 April 1687. After studying at Trinity College, Cambridge, he traveled abroad, and on his re turn home, after the commencement of the civil war, he was presented to the King, at Oxford. He served in the royal army, under Prince Rupert and Lord Gerard. His estate was seized by the Parliament; but having obtained the restoration of it, he traveled with his brother into France and Italy. In 1648 he returned to England, and was with Charles II in Scotland, and at the battle of Worcester. He followed that Prince abroad, and served as a volunteer in the French army in Flanders. He afterward returned to England, and in 1657 married the daughter of Lord Fairfax, by which means he repaired the ruin of his fortune in the royal cause. He, however, preserved the favor of Charles II, and at the Restoration was made master of the horse. He also became one of the King's confidential ministers, who were des ignated by the appellation of the ((Cabal• (1667-73). His political conduct was, like his general behavior, characterized by unprincipled levity and imprudence. In 1666 he engaged in a conspiracy to effect a change of the govern ment; notwithstanding which, he recovered the favor of King Charles, which he repeatedly abused. The profligacy of his private life was
notorious. He seduced the Countess of Shrews bury, and killed her husband in a duel; and he was more than suspected of having been the instigator of the infamous Colonel Blood to his brutal outrage against the Duke of Or mond, whom he attempted, with the assistance of other ruffians, to carry to Tyburn and hang on the common gallows. In 1677 he was, to gether with the Earls of Shaftesbury and Salis bury and Lord Wharton, committed to the Tower for a contempt, by order of the House of Lords, but on petitioning the King, they were released. He plotted against the government with the Dissenters, and made himself an ob ject of contempt to all parties. Pope ( 'Moral Essays,' epistle 3d) has more strikingly than accurately described his death. His abilities were far superior to those of his father; and among his literary compositions the comedy, or rather the witty burlesque, of 'The Rehearsal' may be mentioned as a work which displays no common powers, and which greatly contributed to the correction of a corrupted public taste.