Sir Charles Sedley, 5th Baronet
Sir Charles Sedley, 5th Baronet (March 1639 – 20 August 1701), was an English noble, dramatist and politician. He was principally remembered for his wit and profligacy.[1]
Life
He was the son of Sir John Sedley, 2nd Baronet, of Aylesford in Kent, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Henry Savile. The Sedleys (also sometimes spelt Sidley) had been prominent in Kent since at least 1337. Sedley's grandfather, William Sedley, was knighted in 1605 and created a baronet in 1611. 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, and the brother Charles was knighted by William III after the coronation in 1689 and created a baronet in 1702.[2] 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. The Sedley baronetcy became extinct on his death.[3]
Sedley is famous as a patron[4] of literature in the Restoration period, and was the Francophile Lisideius of Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy.[5][6] However, it was above all Sedley's wit that his contemporaries admired him for.[7]
Sedley was reputed as a notorious
From the balcony of Oxford Kate's Tavern he, Lord Buckhurst and Sir Thomas Ogle shocked and delighted a crowd of onlookers with their blasphemous and obscene antics. According to
Sedley was
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 in May 1685. There can be no doubt that Sedley opposed the Catholic James and supported William of Orange in the crucial year of 1688.[10] Sedley was returned in the second Parliament of William, elected in March 1690. 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.
Family
Charles Sedley inherited the title (5th baronet) in 1656 when his brother William died. By his first wife, Lady Katherine Savage, daughter of
He met Ann Ayscough, probably around 1670, by whom he had two illegitimate sons, William and Charles Sedley. William died in infancy, and the brother Charles was knighted by
Legacy
His reputation as a wit and dissolute was partially responsible for the Sedleys of William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair.[1]
Works
Poems
His most famous song, "Phyllis is My Only Joy", is much more widely known now than the author's name.
A number of his poems have been set to music: "Phyllis is My Only Joy" in a
Plays
His first comedy,
Editions
- Pompey the Great (1664); adaptation and translation of 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 Molière's L'École des Maris (1661).
- Antony and Cleopatra (1677)
- Bellamira: or, The Mistress (1687); partly modelled on Terence'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
- 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).
References
Citations
- ^ a b Harden, Edgar F. (ed.), Selected Letters of William Makepeace Thackeray, p. 150.
- ^ Burke's Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies, p483
- ^ Burke's Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies
- ^ See The Mulberry-Garden" and "Bellamira, ed. Hanowell, pp. xxxi-xxxii.
- ^ a b c d Chisholm 1911.
- ^ Frank L. Huntley, "On the Persons in Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy", in: Essential Articles for the Study of John Dryden, ed. H. T. Swedenberg Jr. (Hamden, Colorado, 1966), pp. 83–90.
- ^ The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Latham and Matthews, Vol. V, p. 288 and Vol. VIII, p. 71. See also the presentation of Sedley in Gerard Langbaine, An Account of the Dramatick Poets. The English Stage: Attack and Defense 1577–1730, ed. Arthur Freeman (New York and London, 1973).
- ^ Fergus Linnane (2006). The Lives of the English Rakes. London: Portrait. pp. 24–25.
- ^ David M. Vieth, "Sir Charles Sedley and the Ballers' Oath", in: The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats, 12 (1979), 47–49.
- ^ Pinto, Sir Charles Sedley: A Study in the Life, p. 203
- ^ "Poetical and Dramatic Works", ed. Pinto, Vol. 1, p. 52, ll.7-8.
- ^ 1
- ^ 2.
- ISSN 0306-1078.
- ^ "Hears not my Phillis how the birds 'The Knotting Song', Z371 - Hyperion Records - CDS, MP3 and Lossless downloads".
- ISBN 9781860962981.
- )
- ^ See Sir Charles Sedley's "The Mulberry-Garden" (1668) and "Bellamira, or: The Mistress" (1687), ed. Hanowell, p. xxiii
- ^ Pierre Danchin, The Prologues and Epilogues of the Restoration 1660-1700, 4 vols (Nancy, 1981).
Bibliography
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Sedley, Sir Charles". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 597. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- Leigh Rayment's list of baronets
- Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs
External links
- Ward, Adolphus William (1897). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 51.
- Hutchinson, John (1892). . Men of Kent and Kentishmen (Subscription ed.). Canterbury: Cross & Jackman. pp. 120–121.