Fictionalizations
Felton's assassination of the Duke was fictionalized in Alexandre Dumas, père's The Three Musketeers. In Dumas's novel, Felton serves under Lord de Winter who entrusts him to guard the fictional Milady de Winter. Milady's master, Cardinal Richelieu, has ordered her to have Buckingham murdered so that he will not aid the Huguenot cause in the Protestant city of La Rochelle. As they question each other she puts on a façade of sorrow and broken innocence, even pretending to be a Puritan like Felton, and making up a whole story of being drugged and raped by the duke. Milady manages to seduce Felton in a matter of days. They finally escape together and Felton is sent to stab the duke, which he then justifies on the grounds of his lack of promotion in order to protect Milday. Felton realizes that he has been deceived when Milady sails away without him and he is left to be hanged for his crime.
In the 1973 film The Three Musketeers and its 1974 sequel The Four Musketeers, Felton is played by Michael Gothard. Felton appears briefly in the first film as a servant of the Duke of Buckingham (Lord de Winter does not appear in the films). The second film portrays his gradual seduction by Milady at some length, and then his assassination of Buckingham.
The Duke's assassination features in Philippa Gregory's novel Earthly Joys. In Ronald Blythe's novel "The Assassin" Felton is depicted as a complex character whose motives for the assassination are altruistic.
Read more about this topic: John Felton (assassin)