Charles Sedley
Encyclopedia
Sir Charles Sedley, 5th Baronet (March 1639 – 20 August 1701) was an English
wit, dramatist and politician, ending his career as Speaker of the House of Commons
.
in Kent
, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Henry Savile. The Sedleys (also sometimes spelled Sidley) had been prominent in Kent since at least 1337. Sedley's grandfather, William Sedley, was knighted in 1605. He was the founder of the Sidleian Lectures of Natural Philosophy at Oxford. Sedley was educated at Wadham College, Oxford
, but left without taking a degree. There his tutor was the poet Walter Pope. The second surviving son of Sir John Sedley and Elizabeth, William, succeeded to the baronetcy in 1645. Charles Sedley inherited the title (5th baronet) in 1656 when his brother William died.
By his first wife Lady Katherine Savage, daughter of John, 2nd Earl Rivers
he had only one legitimate child, Catherine, Countess of Dorchester, mistress of James II. The couple lived in Great Queen Street. After his first wife had been sent to a convent in Ghent on account of a serious mental condition, Sedley in vain tried to obtain a divorce. He met Ann Ayscough, probably around 1670, by whom he had two illegitimate sons, William and Charles Sedley. William died in infancy, the brother Charles was knighted by William III
after the coronation in 1689. The relationship with Ann Ayscough lasted to the end of Sedley's life. Sedley died at Hampstead on 20 August 1701 and was buried at Southfleet Church on the 26th.
Sedley is famous as a patron of literature in the Restoration period
, and was the Francophile Lisideius of Dryden
's Essay of Dramatic Poesy. However, it was above all Sedley's wit that his contemporaries admired him for.
. In his epigram "To Nysus", for example, Sedley describes the function of satire and emphasizes the aggressive mode of satire: "Let us write satyr than, and at our ease / Vex the ill-natur'd Fools we cannot please." At the same time, Sedley translated other specimens of ancient poetry, such as Virgil
's Georgics IV, the eighth Ode of the second Book of Horace
and three elegies from Ovid
's Amores. Dryden
included Sedley's translations from Ovid in the Miscellany of 1684.
(1668), hardly sustains Sedley's contemporary reputation for wit in conversation. The best, but most licentious, of his comedies is Bellamira
: or, The Mistress (1687), an imitation of the Eunuchus of Terence
, in which the heroine is supposed to represent the duchess of Cleveland, the mistress of Charles II
. While The Mulberry-Garden exuberantly praises the achievements of the Restoration, Bellamira
displays a dark cynicism which has to be accounted for within a changed historical context. His two tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra (1677) and The Tyrant King of Crete (1702), an adaptation of Henry Killigrew's Pallantus and Eudora, have little merit. He also produced The Grumbler (1702), an adaptation of Le Grondeur of Brueys and Palaprat. However, many contents of the Sedley's posthumous edition are spurious. Apart from the prologues of his own plays, Sedley wrote at least four more prologues to comedies, the best-known of which was written for Shadwell
's Epsom-Wells.
and libertine
, part of the "Merry Gang" gang of courtiers which included the Earl of Rochester
and Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst. In 1663 an indecent frolic in Bow Street, for which he was heavily fined, made Sedley notorious. In this escapade Sedley and Lord Buckhurst stripped off on the balcony of a tavern in Bow Street
and assumed various indecent postures with each other before Sedley washed his penis in a glass of wine with which he subsequently drank the king's health. This behaviour provoked a riot amongst the onlookers and condemnation in the courts, where the Lord Chief Justice gave his opinion that it was because of wretches like him "that God's anger and judgement hang over us".
Sedley was member of parliament
for New Romney
in Kent, and took an active and useful part in politics. A speech of his on the civil list after the Revolution
is cited by Macaulay as a proof that his reputation as a man of wit and ability was deserved. His bon mot at the expense of James II
is well known. The king had seduced his daughter and created her countess of Dorchester, whereupon Sedley said: "As the king has made my daughter a countess, the least I can do, in common gratitude, is to assist in making his Majesty's daughter (Mary
) a queen". Sedley is also occasionally associated with a notorious gang of unbridled revellers who called themselves Ballers and who were active between 1660 and 1670. It was probably Sedley who wrote the Ballers' Oath on behalf of them.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
wit, dramatist and politician, ending his career as Speaker of the House of Commons
Speaker of the British House of Commons
The Speaker of the House of Commons is the presiding officer of the House of Commons, the United Kingdom's lower chamber of Parliament. The current Speaker is John Bercow, who was elected on 22 June 2009, following the resignation of Michael Martin...
.
Life
Charles Sedley was the son of Sir John Sedley, 2nd Baronet, of AylesfordAylesford
Aylesford is a village and civil parish on the River Medway in Kent, 4 miles NW of Maidstone in England.Originally a small riverside settlement, the old village comprises around 60 houses, many of which were formerly shops. One pub, a Post Office and four small independent shops remain...
in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Henry Savile. The Sedleys (also sometimes spelled Sidley) had been prominent in Kent since at least 1337. Sedley's grandfather, William Sedley, was knighted in 1605. He was the founder of the Sidleian Lectures of Natural Philosophy at Oxford. Sedley was educated at Wadham College, Oxford
Wadham College, Oxford
Wadham College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, located at the southern end of Parks Road in central Oxford. It was founded by Nicholas and Dorothy Wadham, wealthy Somerset landowners, during the reign of King James I...
, but left without taking a degree. There his tutor was the poet Walter Pope. The second surviving son of Sir John Sedley and Elizabeth, William, succeeded to the baronetcy in 1645. Charles Sedley inherited the title (5th baronet) in 1656 when his brother William died.
By his first wife Lady Katherine Savage, daughter of John, 2nd Earl Rivers
John Savage, 2nd Earl Rivers
-Family:Savage was the first son of Thomas Savage, 1st Viscount Savage and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Darcy, 1st Earl Rivers. He succeeded to the Savage viscountcy in 1635 on the death of his father, and succeeded to the Rivers earldom on the death of his grandfather in 1640, by a...
he had only one legitimate child, Catherine, Countess of Dorchester, mistress of James II. The couple lived in Great Queen Street. After his first wife had been sent to a convent in Ghent on account of a serious mental condition, Sedley in vain tried to obtain a divorce. He met Ann Ayscough, probably around 1670, by whom he had two illegitimate sons, William and Charles Sedley. William died in infancy, the brother Charles was knighted by William III
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...
after the coronation in 1689. The relationship with Ann Ayscough lasted to the end of Sedley's life. Sedley died at Hampstead on 20 August 1701 and was buried at Southfleet Church on the 26th.
Sedley is famous as a patron of literature in the Restoration period
Restoration comedy
Restoration comedy refers to English comedies written and performed in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710. After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signalled a renaissance of English drama...
, and was the Francophile Lisideius of Dryden
John Dryden
John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...
's Essay of Dramatic Poesy. However, it was above all Sedley's wit that his contemporaries admired him for.
Sedley as poet and translator
His most famous song, Phyllis is my only joy, is much more widely known now than the author's name. While Sedley chiefly produced light amatory verse and pastoral dialogues in the 1670s, he turned to satirical epigrams in the 1680s and 1690s. His Epigrams: or, Court Characters are modelled on the works of MartialMartial
Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
. In his epigram "To Nysus", for example, Sedley describes the function of satire and emphasizes the aggressive mode of satire: "Let us write satyr than, and at our ease / Vex the ill-natur'd Fools we cannot please." At the same time, Sedley translated other specimens of ancient poetry, such as Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
's Georgics IV, the eighth Ode of the second Book of Horace
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
and three elegies from Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
's Amores. Dryden
Dryden
-People:* Dave Dryden, retired Canadian ice hockey goaltender* David Owen Dryden, renowned San Diego builder-architect*Erasmus Dryden * Helen Dryden, American artist and designer* Hugh L. Dryden, NASA Deputy Director...
included Sedley's translations from Ovid in the Miscellany of 1684.
The plays
His first comedy, The Mulberry-GardenThe Mulberry-Garden
The Mulberry-Garden is a comedy by Restoration poet and playwright Sir Charles Sedley and was published in 1668-Stage History and Reception:...
(1668), hardly sustains Sedley's contemporary reputation for wit in conversation. The best, but most licentious, of his comedies is Bellamira
Bellamira (play)
Bellamira: or, The Mistress is a comedy by Sir Charles Sedley, published in 1687, partly modelled on Terence's Eunuchus-Stage History and Reception:...
: or, The Mistress (1687), an imitation of the Eunuchus of Terence
Terence
Publius Terentius Afer , better known in English as Terence, was a playwright of the Roman Republic, of North African descent. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on,...
, in which the heroine is supposed to represent the duchess of Cleveland, the mistress of Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
. While The Mulberry-Garden exuberantly praises the achievements of the Restoration, Bellamira
Bellamira (play)
Bellamira: or, The Mistress is a comedy by Sir Charles Sedley, published in 1687, partly modelled on Terence's Eunuchus-Stage History and Reception:...
displays a dark cynicism which has to be accounted for within a changed historical context. His two tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra (1677) and The Tyrant King of Crete (1702), an adaptation of Henry Killigrew's Pallantus and Eudora, have little merit. He also produced The Grumbler (1702), an adaptation of Le Grondeur of Brueys and Palaprat. However, many contents of the Sedley's posthumous edition are spurious. Apart from the prologues of his own plays, Sedley wrote at least four more prologues to comedies, the best-known of which was written for Shadwell
Shadwell
Shadwell is an inner-city district situated within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets located on the north bank of the Thames between Wapping to the south and Ratcliff to the east...
's Epsom-Wells.
Reputation of the young and dashing courtiers of Charles II's time
Sedley was reputed as a notorious rakeRake (character)
A rake, short for rakehell, is a historic term applied to a man who is habituated to immoral conduct, frequently a heartless womanizer. Often a rake was a man who wasted his fortune on gambling, wine, women and song, incurring lavish debts in the process...
and libertine
Libertine
A libertine is one devoid of most moral restraints, which are seen as unnecessary or undesirable, especially one who ignores or even spurns accepted morals and forms of behavior sanctified by the larger society. Libertines, also known as rakes, placed value on physical pleasures, meaning those...
, part of the "Merry Gang" gang of courtiers which included the Earl of Rochester
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester , styled Viscount Wilmot between 1652 and 1658, was an English Libertine poet, a friend of King Charles II, and the writer of much satirical and bawdy poetry. He was the toast of the Restoration court and a patron of the arts...
and Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst. In 1663 an indecent frolic in Bow Street, for which he was heavily fined, made Sedley notorious. In this escapade Sedley and Lord Buckhurst stripped off on the balcony of a tavern in Bow Street
Bow Street
Bow Street is a thoroughfare in Covent Garden, Westminster, London. It features as one of the streets on the standard London Monopoly board....
and assumed various indecent postures with each other before Sedley washed his penis in a glass of wine with which he subsequently drank the king's health. This behaviour provoked a riot amongst the onlookers and condemnation in the courts, where the Lord Chief Justice gave his opinion that it was because of wretches like him "that God's anger and judgement hang over us".
Sedley was member of parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for New Romney
New Romney
New Romney is a small town in Kent, England, on the edge of Romney Marsh, an area of flat, rich agricultural land reclaimed from the sea after the harbour began to be silted up. New Romney was once a sea port, with the harbour adjacent to the church, but is now more than a mile from the sea...
in Kent, and took an active and useful part in politics. A speech of his on the civil list after the Revolution
English Revolution
"English Revolution" has been used to describe two different events in English history. The first to be so called—by Whig historians—was the Glorious Revolution of 1688, whereby James II was replaced by William III and Mary II as monarch and a constitutional monarchy was established.In the...
is cited by Macaulay as a proof that his reputation as a man of wit and ability was deserved. His bon mot at the expense of James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
is well known. The king had seduced his daughter and created her countess of Dorchester, whereupon Sedley said: "As the king has made my daughter a countess, the least I can do, in common gratitude, is to assist in making his Majesty's daughter (Mary
Mary II of England
Mary II was joint Sovereign of England, Scotland, and Ireland with her husband and first cousin, William III and II, from 1689 until her death. William and Mary, both Protestants, became king and queen regnant, respectively, following the Glorious Revolution, which resulted in the deposition of...
) a queen". Sedley is also occasionally associated with a notorious gang of unbridled revellers who called themselves Ballers and who were active between 1660 and 1670. It was probably Sedley who wrote the Ballers' Oath on behalf of them.
Member of Parliament
Sedley's parliamentary career started in the 1660s but around 1677/78 he joined the Whig cause. When Charles II died in 1685, Sedley was illegally excluded from the parliament of his successor James II, which convened on May 1685. There can be no doubt that Sedley opposed the Catholic James and supported William of Orange in the crucial year of 1688. It was in the second Pariament of William, elected in March 1690, that Sedley was returned, his political career reaching its zenith through his becoming Speaker of the Commons. More speeches and parliamentary motions followed in 1690, including discussions on the Bill for regulating trials for High Treason, which sheds light on Sedley's political commitment after the Revolution. Sedley's speeches were included in the 1702 edition of The Miscellaneous Works. Sedley kept his seat in Parliament until his death in 1701.Works
- Pompey the Great (1664); adaptation and translation of CorneillePierre CorneillePierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
's La mort de Pompée (1644); together with Charles Sackville (later Earl of Dorset), Sidney Godolphin, Edmund Waller, and Sir Edward Filmer. - The Mulberry-Garden (1668); party modelled on MolièreMolièreJean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
's L'École des Maris (1661). - Antony and Cleopatra (1677)
- Bellamira: or, The Mistress (1687); partly modelled on TerenceTerencePublius Terentius Afer , better known in English as Terence, was a playwright of the Roman Republic, of North African descent. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on,...
's Eunuchus - Beauty the Conquerour: or, The Death of Marc Antony (posthumous 1702)
- The Miscellaneous Works of the Honourable Sir Charles Sedley (London, 1702).
- The Works of the Honourable Sir Charles Sedley, 2 vols (London, 1722).
- The Works of the Honourable Sir Charles Sedley, 2 vols (London, 1776).
- (possibly by Sedley) The Tyrant King of Crete; shortened version of Henry Killigrew's Pallantus and Eudora.
- (possibly by Sedley) The Grumbler; translation of a French farce Le Grondeur
Modern Editions
- The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Sir Charles Sedley, ed. Vivian de Sola Pinto. 2 vols (London, 1928; repr. New York: AMS Press, 1969).
- Sir Charles Sedley's "The Mulberry-Garden" (1668) and "Bellamira: or, The Mistress" (1687): An Old-Spelling Critical Edition with an Introduction and a Commentary, ed. Holger Hanowell, Münster Monographs on English Literature (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2001).
Further reading
- Vivian de Sola Pinto, Sir Charles Sedley 1639-1701: A Study in the Life and Literature of the Restoration (London, 1927).
- Michael Benjamin Hudnall Jr. Moral Design in the Plays of Sir Charles Sedley (University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 1984).
- Robert D. Hume, The Development of English Drama in the Late Seventeenth Century (Oxford, 1976).
- Derek Hughes, English Drama 1660-1700 (Oxford, 1996).