The Scapegoat

The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham, a talk by prize-winning author, Lucy Hughes-Hallett.

Join us at the National Horseracing Museum in Newmarket with Lucy Hughes-Hallett, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize, the Duff Cooper Prize and the Costa Biography of the Year Award, will give a fascinating talk on the extraordinary story of the meteoric rise and fall of King James I’s favourite, George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham.

With a novelist’s touch, Lucy transports us into a courtly world of masques and dancing, exquisite clothes, the art of Rubens and Van Dyck, gender-fluidity, brutal warfare and appallingly rudimentary medicine. These were dangerous and complicated times, an era where witch hunts coexisted with the beginnings of empirical science.

Buckingham stood at its centre until his spectacular fall from grace.
Ranging from tempestuous scenes in Parliament to the emergent political force of public opinion, The Scapegoat is a rich and compelling story about sex, misogyny, diplomacy and power, with deep resonance for today’s world. Hughes-Hallett’s extraordinary recreation of the period delves into love, war-fever and pacifism in a society on the brink of cataclysmic change.

Times: 5.45pm-8pm
Tickets: £40 for non-members, £30 for members
Booking: Essential - visit the Suffolk Preservation Society website to book
Venue: National Horseracing Museum, Newmarket

This event is promoted by Suffolk Preservation Society and National Horseracing Museum.

Extra info:
For people travelling by car there are a number of car parks in Newmarket, the two closest to the museum are Rous Road, CB8 8LX (short stay) and All Saints, CB8 8ET (long stay) car parks. The museum is just a short walk from Newmarket train station and Newmarket bus station.

See the National Horseracing Museum's full programme of events via their What's On page.