Walken biography

English military officer (1628)

This article is about the assassin of the Duke of Buckingham. For the English Catholic martyr, see John Felton (martyr).

John Felton (c. 1595 – 29 November 1628) was an English military officer who assassinated George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham by stabbing him to death in the Greyhound Pub at Portsmouth on 23 August 1628.

Charles I of England trusted Buckingham, who made himself rich in the process but proved a failure at foreign and military policy. Charles gave him command of a military expedition against Spain in 1625. It was a total fiasco with many dying from disease and starvation.

Walken biography

He led another disastrous military campaign in 1627. Buckingham was hated and the damage to the king's reputation was irreparable. Buckingham's assassination by Felton was widely celebrated by the English public even after Felton's execution.^[2]

Early life

John Felton was born around 1595, possibly in Suffolk, to