Buckingham

Lucy Hughes-Hallett, a writer who has won the Baillie Gifford Prize, follows George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham, from his rise as the favourite of James I to his downfall. Villiers was a striking and elusive figure at the Stuart court. His good looks opened doors, and he walked through them with real skill, turning royal affection into vast wealth and authority. Before he reached thirty-three, he had served as chief minister to two successive kings.

The book evokes a court of masques, dancing and lavish clothing, with paintings by Rubens and Van Dyck, and it addresses questions of gender, sexuality and medicine that was crude by modern standards. It also shows an age in which witch hunts existed alongside the rational thinking associated with Descartes. Buckingham was at the centre of all of this until his spectacular fall from favour.

The Scapegoat covers the tense debates in Parliament and the pressure of public opinion that helped bring him down. Its themes include love, war and pacifism, set against a society on the verge of profound change. The author suggests that the period has echoes for the present day.