The children of this marriage, John, George, and Christopher, were but a few years younger than the young Beaumonts of Grace-Dieu; and there would naturally be some coming and going between the Villiers children of Brooksby and their Beaumont kin of Coleorton and Grace-Dieu. George, the second son, born in 1592, through whom the fortunes of the family were achieved, was introduced to King James in August 1614. This youth of twenty-two had all the graces of the Beaumont as well as the Villiers blood. "He was of singularly prepossessing appearance," says Gardiner, "and was endowed not only with personal vigour, but with that readiness of speech which James delighted in." It was his mother, Maria, now the widowed Lady Villiers, who manoeuvred the meeting. Her husband's estates had gone to the children of the first marriage: George was her favourite son and she staked everything upon his success. James took to him from the first; the same year he made him cup-bearer; the next, Gentleman of the Bed-chamber, and knighted him and gave him a pension. We may imagine that Francis Beaumont and his brother John watched the promotion of their kinsman with keen interest. But his phenomenal career was only then beginning. In 1616, a few months after Francis had died, Sir George Villiers was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Villiers. By 1617 this devoted "Steenie" of his "dear Dad and Gossop," King James, is Earl of Buckingham, and now,--that Somerset has fallen,--the most potent force in the kingdom; in 1618 he is Marquis, and in 1623, Duke,--and for some years past he has been enjoying an income of L15,000 a year from the lands and perquisites bestowed upon him. Meanwhile his brother, John, has, in 1617, married a great heiress, the daughter of Sir Edward Coke of Beaumont's Inner Temple, and in 1619 has become Viscount Purbeck; his mother, the intriguing Maria, has been created Countess of Buckingham, in her own right; in due time his younger brother, the stupid Christopher, is made Earl of Anglesey. And Buckingham takes thought not for his immediate family alone: In 1617 "Villiers' kinsman [Hen] Beaumont was to have the Bishopric of Worcester, but failed";[102] in 1622 his cousin, Sir Thomas Beaumont of Coleorton, the son of the Sir Henry[103] who cared for Villiers' mother in her indigence, is created Viscount Beaumont of Swords; and in 1626, John Beaumont of Grace-Dieu is dubbed knight-baronet. In 1620, the Marquis of Buckingham had married Katharine Manners, the daughter and sole heiress of Francis, Earl of Rutland. It was a love match; and John Beaumont celebrated it with a glowing epithalamium, praying for the speedy birth of a son Who may be worthy of his father's stile, May answere to our hopes, and strictly may combine The happy height of Villiers race with noble Rutland's line.