ABSTRACT
In The French Favourites (1709) the author resolved to critically investigate the phenomenon of the favourite, in order to show ‘who they are that Reign without Right, without Merit, and without a Crown’. 1 The pamphlet used extracts of anti-Mazarin literature, but the date of publication coincided with the death of the Earl of Portland and the zenith of the career of the Duke of Marlborough, pointing to the fact that the favourite had become a well-known actor again on the English political stage. In late-Tudor and early-Stuart England the favourite had been all too familiar. Elizabeth’s favourites played an important role in the administration and faction struggles at Court. The Duke of Buckingham, the favourite of James I and Charles I, most resembled the archetypical image of the all-powerful favourite who ruled on behalf of the monarch, like the Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin in France, and the Dukes of Lerma and Olivarez in Spain. Buckingham exerted an influence that after his day would never be available to Archbishop Laud and the Earl of Strafford, let alone the parliamentary managers of the Restoration period. Charles II and James II made use of parliamentary managers, such as the Earls of Clarendon, Danby and Sunderland.
