Selden had been a friend of Jonson , Camden, and Cotton since about 1605; he contributed a commendatory verse to the 1616 folio. He published extensively on the law and other matters, and was prominent in parliamentary affairs throughout the 1620s.

A younger son, Villiers was originally a page, but his fortunes rose rapidly when he was introduced to James I, whose greatest favourite he became, in 1614. By 1616 he had been knighted and made Master of the Horse, and in the same year he became a garter knight and Viscount Villiers. He was Earl of Buckingham in 1617 and Marquis of Buckingham in 1618. In 1620 he married Lady Katherine Manners, whose open Catholicism (and, later, that of his mother) made him unpopular and suspected in many circles. In the early 1620s he came into conflict with parliament over monopolies and nepotism, and over the question of military support for the Palatinate. In 1623 he accompanied Prince Charles , incognito, to Madrid in the 'Spanish Marriage' fiasco, and tried to raise a war against Spain upon their return to England in 1624. He had meanwhile been created Duke of Buckingham in his absence. He sponsored a series of unsuccessful military expeditions (under Mansfeld to the Palatinate in 1624, to Cadiz in 1625 and to La Rochelle in 1627). He became chancellor of Cambridge University in 1628, but was assassinated by John Felton, a disaffected soldier, at Portsmouth on 23 Aug., while urging a new expedition to La Rochelle.