Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/313

 FELTON, JOHN (1595?–1628), assassin of the Duke of Buckingham, was of a Suffolk family. According to the statement of the Suffolk antiquary, John Rous (Diary, Camd. Soc. p. 27), ‘he was borne neere to Sudbury.’ A Thomas Felton is known to have been residing near Pentlow, Suffolk, in the neighbourhood of Sudbury, in 1595, and it has been suggested that this was John Felton's father (Suffolk Institute of Archæology Proc. iv. 39–40). He was certainly connected with the great family of Felton settled at Playford, Suffolk, whose chief, Henry, was created a baronet in 1620, and he claimed relationship with the Earl and Countess of Arundel. Sir Simonds D'Ewes says he was ‘a gentleman of very ancient familie of gentrie in Suffolk.’ His mother was Eleanor, daughter of William Wright, mayor of Durham, and he had a brother Edmund (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1628–9, pp. 321, 340). Felton entered the army at an early age, and his left hand was rendered useless by a wound. He served as a lieutenant, apparently to a Captain Lee, under Sir Edward Cecil at Cadiz in 1625. Always surly and morose, he was unpopular with his comrades, and he is said to have quarrelled with Sir Henry Hungate on the Cadiz voyage. Hungate was a favourite with the Duke of Buckingham, and D'Ewes attributes Felton's failure to gain promotion in the army to Hungate's influence with the duke. While the expedition of 1627 was being organised, Felton twice applied for command of a company, on the first occasion being recommended by Sir William Uvedale, and on the second by Sir William Becher, but was refused in both instances. Clarendon states that he thereupon gave up his commission, but this is clearly incorrect. He made at least one personal application to Buckingham, and pleaded that without a captain's place he could not live. The duke answered that he would have to hang if he could not live. Whether or not he joined the expedition of 1627 is uncertain, but it is undoubted that he harboured the angriest feelings against Buckingham. In July 1628 he employed a scrivener of Holborn named George Willoughby to draw up petitions for arrears of pay, which, according to his own account, exceeded 80l. He was suffering great poverty at the time, and his moroseness and melancholy were increasing. On one of his visits to Willoughby's office he found Willoughby making copies for public distribution of the ‘remonstrance,’ drawn up by the parliamentary leaders in the previous June. He obtained permission to read the paper, expressed satisfaction with its sentiment, and purchased a transcript. Felton had always been a reader, and his library now included the remonstrance, the attack on Buckingham by Dr. George Eglisham [q.v.], and ‘The Golden Epistles,’ i.e. probably the volume by Sir Geoffrey Fenton [q.v.]. Perusal of these works combined with his sense of private injury led him to plan Buckingham's assassination. On Tuesday, 19 Aug., he obtained a little money from his mother, Eleanor Felton, who lodged at a haberdasher's in Fleet Street, and announced his intention of going to Portsmouth, where Buckingham was preparing a new expedition for France. Before starting he left directions at a church in Fleet Street that he should be prayed for as a man disordered and discontented in mind on the following Sunday; bought a tenpenny dagger-knife of a cutler on Tower Hill, which he fastened to his right-hand pocket so that he could draw it without using his crippled left hand, and finally wrote on a paper, which he pinned on the lining of his hat, the following sentence from ‘The Golden Epistles:’ ‘That man is cowardly and base and deserveth not the name of a gentleman or soldier that is not willing to sacrifice his life for the honour of his God, his king, and his country.’ Another sentence, of his own composition, followed: ‘Let no man commend me for doing of it, but rather discommend themselves as the cause of it, for if God had not taken away our hearts for our sins he would not have gone so long unpunished.’ Felton made his way to Portsmouth, chiefly on foot, and did not arrive before nine o'clock on Saturday, 23 Aug. No. 10 High Street was in the occupation of Buckingham, the lord admiral, and thither Felton trudged on entering the town. The hall was crowded with men anxious to be engaged in the expedition, and Felton mingled with the concourse unnoticed. Buckingham entered in conversation with Colonel Sir Thomas Fryer, a man of short stature. Felton approached the two and stabbed the duke over Fryer's arm in the left breast. No one saw the blow struck, and Felton retired to the kitchen leading from the hall. The duke staggered, and fell dead. All was confusion, and the cry ‘A Frenchman!’ was raised. Felton imagined that his own name was mentioned, re-entered the hall, and cried out, ‘I am the man; here I am.’ It was only owing to the efforts of Carleton, Sir Thomas Morton, and Lord Montgomery that he escaped lynching on the spot. He was taken to the house of the governor of Portsmouth, and a fortnight later carried to the Tower of London, where he occupied the cell recently vacated by Sir John Eliot.

Whatever feelings Felton's act excited in government circles, popular sentiment ran high in his favour. While at Kingston-on-