Mercury Vindicated From The Alchemists - Politics

Politics

The masque was significant in the internal politics of the Stuart Court, in that it marked a major step in the ascension of George Villiers as the new favorite of King James. For several years, Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset had held that wholly unofficial but very powerful position, as well as rising to major official posts such as Lord Chamberlain; but Somerset's role in the 1613 murder of Sir Thomas Overbury was becoming a major scandal. A Court faction opposed to Somerset — which included Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford, the patroness of John Donne and other poets, including Ben Jonson—was actively promoting Villiers as a replacement for Robert Carr. To the date of the masque, their promotion of Villiers has not been enormously successful; Mercury Vindicated was staged, at least in the estimation of some contemporaries, with the "principal motive" of "the gracing of young Villiers and to bring him on the stage." The plan was eventually successful, and Villiers, as the new Duke of Buckingham, replaced Somerset as the royal favorite, not merely through the remainder of James's reign but into the reign of his son and successor Charles I.