On the morning of 28 August 1628, a disgruntled young military lieutenant, angry at being passed over twice for promotion and owed £80 in back pay for his part in the disasterous campaigns against the French the previous year, in which he had been seriously wounded, took a cheap knife and transformed the political scene in England at a thrust.

The man was John Felton, the son of a moderately well-off family from Suffolk and his victim was the Duke of Buckingham, the former George Villiers, favourite of the first two Stuart kings, but generally hated by the public at large, after a serious of failed military actions against the French.

The assassination took place at what was then known as the Greyhound Inn, in Portsmouth's High Street, and although various paintings and engravings show the attack taking place outside the building, contemporary accounts are pretty unanimous that it was actually inside the inn, which was at the time owned by Captain John Mason, Buckingham's Paymaster for the fleet at Portsmouth.

In the confusion that immediately followed the stabbing, Felton managed to make his way through the building and into the kitchen area and could almost certainly have escaped undetected, but thinking that his action would meet with public support, he returned to the scene of the murder and gave himself up.

But if Felton thought he would be treated like some sort of national hero, he was greatly mistaken; Buckingham the dandy, socialite and incompetent military leader may have been hugely unpopular with the populace in general, but he was effectively Charles I's prime minister (the office did not exist as such for another century) and the authorities took the view that it wouldn't do to have people wandering around bumping off senior government figures.

On hearing the news, King Charles, who had himself visited the Greyhound only three days earlier, retreated to his private chambers, grief stricken over the loss of his and his late father's closest friend, whilst the population did indeed receive that very same news with spontaneous outbursts of joy.

Felton, meanwhile, was taken under guard to the Tower of London, where he was repeatedly questioned, but his case would be responsible for prompting a change in English law, for when Charles asked Parliament's opinion as to whether the assassin should be questioned under torture, the response was largely negative.

Initially, the authorities were convinced that Felton had acted as part of a larger conspiracy, but he steadfastly maintained that he had acted alone and, in his opinion, for the public good - he said that he had come across a copy of Felton had come across a copy of the 1628 Parliament’s Remonstrance against the Duke of Buckingham and believed that the man was acting against the good of the country. .

By late November, the interrogators accepted that Felton was telling the truth and he was put on trial. Worried about possible public unrest, the authorities made sure that Felton was portrayed as a wicked, cowardly, atheistic criminal, who had acted out of purely personal motives and that his promotion requests had been denied because he was a poor soldier and an incompetent officer - and we think we suffer at the hands of spin doctors today!

There seems little doubt that Felton was somewhat unbalanced mentally in the period leading up to the assassination, as he was known to have become morose and moody and somewhat withdrawn and surly, but the authorities and the lawyers prosecuting him really laid it on with a trowel, so when he was found guilty, there could be only one verdict.

Two days later, on the scaffold at Tyburn, Felton confessed his crime before a crowd of onlookers and openly repented his actions, reiterating the fact that he had acted alone and that the only one to drive him to commit the crime had been Satan himself.

After he was hanged, his body was taken down and returned to Portsmouth, where it was hung in chains and left to rot, but rather than acting as a public deterrent, his corpse became an object of veneration to many.

By the time of Felton's execution at Tyburn, the famous Hanging Tree was long gone, replaced in 1571 by an eighteen foot high gallows capable of hanging 24 criminals at a time.

Executions would be watched by crowds of jeering - and sometimes cheering - onlookers, the size of the crowds depending upon the fame or notoriety of the condemned men and women.

Before every execution, the bells of the nearby Church of the Sepulchre would toll for the souls of those about to depart this world (the church was paid

£50 per year to perform this duty, and the condemned would be taken to the gallows on the back of a cart.

There was no "long drop" hanging method to ensure instant death; instead, the horse would be whipped up and the cart would be dragged out from under the condemned, leaving him or her dangling and choking at the end of the rope

Sometimes, the executioner or his

assistants would hang on the dying victim's legs, to hasten death, but in some cases this would simply anger the crowd, who had come along to enjoy a "spectacle".

The artist William Hogarth produced several illustrations, including the "Execution Of The Idle Prentis" (right), which give a very good idea of the chaotic and crowded scenes that were commonplace at executions during the seventeenth century.

The Greyhound Inn was renamed Buckingham House after the Duke's assassination, but the building has gone through a variety of roles and guises, both before and since.

The first mention of a building on this site was just over century earlier, in 1523, when it was referred to as le Greyhounde, which was licensed as a "brewery, granary and garden" to one Richard Palshyd, the then Collector of Taxes from Southampton, but it must have been there for some time even then, for in the same year it's recorded that the building underwent considerable rebuilding, although most of the original features were retained.

In 1628 it was purchased by Captain John Mason, a former cartographer and explorer, whose work led to the colonization of New Hampshire, although he never set foot in the

colony, dying in 1637, whilst preparing for his first voyage there.

Mason had just been appointed by Buckingham as paymaster to the fleet at Portsmouth and the Duke paid him more than one visit during 1628; Charles I visited the Greyhound himself, just three days before the assassination.

In 1700, the building was joined to what is now number 11 High Street and completely refronted; in 1705, its ownership passed to Dr G Smith, founder of Portsmouth Grammar School (according to the Buckingham House web pages, although we understand that PGS was founded by a Dr William Smith, former Mayor of Portsmouth, who left his wealth to pay for the setting up of the school in 1832. Can anybody help?)

In 1800, the building was once more split into two and known as 10½ and 11 High Street; over the following years the original building was used for many purposes, both as a private residence and as a school.

In 1836 the house was occupied by a Miss Helby Begg and her sister and used as a day and boarding school for young ladies, popular establishments in those days.

In March of 1840 it was occupied by Miss Tilley's seminary, again for young ladies, and later it returned to domestic use, when a Miss Anne Deacon, who lived in No 11, leaving the other half untenanted.

Bramsdon and Childs solicitors used it as their offices during the 1890s and eventually, in 1946, a major programme of renovation was undertaken by a Mr Robin Aubrey Thomas.

Mr Thomas had quite a job on his hands, for the house had been badly damaged in the blitz, with the kitchen wing destroyed and roofs left open to the sky.

In 1953 the building was listed as of special architectural and historic importance and some years later, in the sixties, it served as the offices for R.A. Thomas & Son Architects.

Despite the extensive refurbishments undertaken in the forties, the building still required a lot of work and, in 2006 a programme of restoration and plans for the future was unveiled, details of which you can find at the Buckingham House website, which you can visit by clicking on the Historic Plaque on the left, or on the coloured image of Buckingham House on the right.