Is Mary & George a true story? The real history behind the royal drama

English courtiers worried about the lack of English influence in the king’s inner circle, and – knowing the king’s preference for the company of young, attractive men – conspired to place George Villiers in the king’s path.

With this backing, and the help of his mother Mary Villiers, by 1614/15 the real George Villiers had succeeded in catching the king’s eye, and was cemented as the king’s favourite for the next decade until James’s death in 1625, reaching unprecedented highs of courtly power.

Is Mary & George a true story?

Many elements of Mary & George are drawn from real history, and the drama is based on a 2017 historical book by writer and broadcaster Benjamin Woolley, The King's Assassin: The Fatal Affair of George Villiers and James I (Pan Macmillan).

Woolley first came across Mary and George when researching another writing project that involved the death of King James VI and I.

“As part of my research, I was looking at […] Dr William Harvey and his role in King James’s final illness. In the Chamber of Sorrows – as James’s sickbed was called – there were these two characters, Mary and George, who seemed to be coordinating what was going on in James’s final hours," he explained on the HistoryExtra podcast. "I saw these characters, basically at the king's bedside, and I just wondered: who are they?”

Viewers of the drama are taken into the early life of George Villiers (played by Nicholas Galitzine), the second son of a family of middling nobility on the edges of royal favour – and the scheming of his mother Mary Villiers (played by Julianne Moore).

As portrayed in the drama, the real Mary was intensely ambitious for her family. When her first husband (also called George) died, she made two more advantageous matches that allowed her to cover his debts, and ascend the social hierarchy of the day.

Mary singled out George among her four children as having the charms and appeal necessary to succeed. They had a very close relationship, explains Woolley, and "the tensions between them were, at times, close to one of them having to be ruined at the hands of the others. And they only just avoided it."

The closer Mary became to court, she was able to manoeuvre her charismatic son into positions to advance; first she sent him to France to learn courtly manners, and finally to the royal court, to capture the king’s attention.

“There was a lot of discussion about James's relationship with these young Scottish men,” explains Woolley. “From an English point of view, the real problem was that there were no young English men in James's close retinue. George was weaponised by Mary in order to fill that gap, and that he did with spectacular success.”

***warning, some elements of the real history below may be a spoiler for the plot of Mary & George***

The relationship between King James VI and I, and George Villiers

James and George met at the estate of Apethorpe in Northamptonshire, during a visit by the king’s court in 1614, when George was introduced as a cupbearer to wait upon the king and his court.

“[George] could dance like the devil,” says Woolley. Over the course of the entertainments and dancing – as shown in the drama – he caught the king’s eye and began to cultivate a relationship that challenged the king’s existing favourite, a Scottish noble called Robert Carr.

The ensuing feud between Villiers and Carr resulted in the latter’s fall from grace; he and his wife, Frances, were then implicated in a court poisoning – and Carr ended up imprisoned in the Tower of London.

James VI and I on screen

James VI and I is played by Tony Curran on screen. Depicted in turn as raucous, vulnerable and neurotic, he is a monarch plagued by past trauma.

Known as ‘the cradle king’, James assumed the throne of Scotland at only 13 months old, and his childhood was marred by instability. His father, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was murdered when he was a few months old; his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, fled to England after her forced abdication in July 1567, where she remained Elizabeth I’s captive for almost 20 years, until her execution in February 1587.

The young King James showed intellectual prowess in his youth and was encouraged by his teachers and advisors from an early age to believe that he was God's representative on earth. He struggled with some physical challenges. “As a young man, he had to be tied onto his horse in order to indulge his passion for hunting,” writes Tracy Borman, “and he would continue to walk while leaning on the shoulder of an attendant for much of his adult life.”

Viewers of Mary & George meet James in his later years – after he had succeeded Elizabeth I to become king of England (styled as James VI and I) – when his court travels to the Villiers family home.

The real King James also enjoyed making royal progresses. “He was constantly on the move,” explains Joe Ellis of the University of York on the HistoryExtra podcast, “and he certainly saw more of England as a Scottish king than most of his Tudor predecessors. Elizabeth's progresses tended to stay around the home counties; James was constantly travelling up and down what would become the M1.”

• Read more | James VI and I: the king who hunted witches

James's court had something of a reputation for drunken debauchery. As Ellis explains, “there are a lot of references to these wild parties that were held at court, which is quite different from the entertainments that Elizabeth staged. Her parties were big and glamorous, but I don’t think they were raucous.”

One courtier described James’s court “as if the devil was contriving every man to blow himself up by wild riot and excess”.

The king “was also constantly just flitting off on hunting holidays with his favourites,” says Ellis, “most of whom were Scottish, which was again, deeply unpopular with the English courtiers.”

The roaming nature of his court attracted further criticism. “There was a lot of complaints at the time that James and his court just simply weren't there in London, where many thought they should be.

“The advantages, on the other hand, were that the daily costs of the court could be offloaded onto those who had the dubious pleasure of hosting.”

This dubious pleasure is shown on screen, as the Villiers family grapples with the extortionate costs of hosting the monarch and his favourites, and the capricious nature of the king’s favour.

What was the real nature of King James’s relationship with his favourites?

On screen, the king is shown indulging in sexual relationships with his male favourites.

What really happened behind the closed doors of the king’s bedchamber is almost unknowable, explains Joe Ellis, “because there’s no real hard evidence. However, many at the time, and now, suspect that they were sexual in nature."

James and his favourites certainly enjoyed political partnerships, explains Ellis. The young men often informed royal policy and acted as a bridge between the king and his army of suitors.

“But I also think it's likely, based on the very small amount of evidence available, that the relationships between James and his favourites were more than platonic,” says Ellis.

While no sources exist to fully confirm the nature of the relationship, there are some slivers of evidence of James’s feelings towards certain courtiers.

• Read more about the relationships of James VI and I and his favourites

Were Mary & George involved in the king’s death?

When King James died at Theobalds Palace in Hertfordshire on 27 March 1625, he was with his son, Charles (who would succeed James as Charles I), and George Villiers. The official sources had it that the king died of an attack of dysentery, complicated by malaria or typhus, which were endemic in England in the early 17th century.

But the secretive nature of what happened in the king’s final days left room for much speculation in the months following his death.

• Read more | How did James VI and I die?

In particular, the presence of Mary and George Villiers in the king’s sickroom provided opportunity for the powerful family’s many political enemies.

“This secret history,” wrote scholars Alastair Bellany and Thomas Cogswell for BBC History Magazine, “the unauthorised version of James’s death, would take another 12 months to achieve a definitive form, but the anxious whispers around court in the early spring of 1625 were disturbing enough.

“Something untoward had happened in James’s sickroom. Someone had violated the strict protocols regulating who was to treat the king, and when.”

• Read more | Was King James VI and I murdered?

To manage James’s conditions, “there were a set of treatments that were regularly used,” explains Woolley – usually repeated purging (whether through bleeding, laxatives or emetics).

James reportedly “scoffed at medicine” and found the regime repugnant. Villiers and the king had regularly corresponded on ailments and treatments that had plagued them both, and in this final illness, Villiers procured a plaster suggested by his mother, and, unbeknown to the other doctors, it was “applied to the king’s breast”.

In the months following James’s death, Villers was accused outright of poisoning the king. And with good reason, according to Woolley. “I think it's almost certain that George had a hand in – how can one put it? – helping James into the grave. But there isn't a conclusion to this issue.”

What cannot be doubted, he says, is the historical significance of the political argument that Villiers did have a role in the king’s death.

Where to watch Mary & George?

Mary & George is currently airing on Sky Atlantic, released in the UK and Australia on 5 March 2024, and on Starz in the US on 5 April.

Benjamin Woolley and Joe Ellis were speaking to Elinor Evans on episodes of the HistoryExtra podcast