Sir Charles Sedley, 5th Baronet

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Sir Charles Sedley

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

rake and libertine, part of the "Merry Gang" of courtiers which included the Earl of Rochester and Lord Buckhurst. In 1663 an indecent frolic in Bow Street
, for which he was fined 2,000 marks, made Sedley 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

Lord Chief Justice gave his opinion that it was because of wretches like him "that God's anger and judgement hang over us".[8]

Sedley was

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 their behalf.[9]

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

Catherine, Countess of Dorchester, who later became a mistress of James II of England. After his first wife had been sent to a convent in Ghent on account of a serious mental condition, Sedley tried in vain 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 of Orange
after the coronation in 1689 and created a baronet in 1702. The relationship with Ann Ayscough lasted until the end of Sedley's life.

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.

Dryden
included Sedley's translations from Ovid in the Miscellany of 1684.

A number of his poems have been set to music: "Phyllis is My Only Joy" in a

Queen Mary, "Love’s goddess sure was blind", which was also set to music by Purcell.[16] The poem was printed in The Gentleman’s Journal of May 1692.[17]

Plays

His first comedy,

Barbara Villiers, 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.[5] However, many contents of Sedley's posthumous edition are spurious.[18] 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.[19]

Editions

References

Citations

  1. ^ a b Harden, Edgar F. (ed.), Selected Letters of William Makepeace Thackeray, p. 150.
  2. ^ Burke's Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies, p483
  3. ^ Burke's Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies
  4. ^ See The Mulberry-Garden" and "Bellamira, ed. Hanowell, pp. xxxi-xxxii.
  5. ^ a b c d Chisholm 1911.
  6. ^ 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.
  7. ^ 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).
  8. ^ Fergus Linnane (2006). The Lives of the English Rakes. London: Portrait. pp. 24–25.
  9. ^ David M. Vieth, "Sir Charles Sedley and the Ballers' Oath", in: The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats, 12 (1979), 47–49.
  10. ^ Pinto, Sir Charles Sedley: A Study in the Life, p. 203
  11. ^ "Poetical and Dramatic Works", ed. Pinto, Vol. 1, p. 52, ll.7-8.
  12. ^ 1
  13. ^ 2.
  14. ISSN 0306-1078
    .
  15. ^ "Hears not my Phillis how the birds 'The Knotting Song', Z371 - Hyperion Records - CDS, MP3 and Lossless downloads".
  16. .
  17. OCLC 30518192.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )
  18. ^ See Sir Charles Sedley's "The Mulberry-Garden" (1668) and "Bellamira, or: The Mistress" (1687), ed. Hanowell, p. xxiii
  19. ^ Pierre Danchin, The Prologues and Epilogues of the Restoration 1660-1700, 4 vols (Nancy, 1981).

Bibliography

External links

Parliament of England
Preceded by Member of Parliament for New Romney
1668–1685
With: Sir Norton Knatchbull 1668–1679
Paul Barret 1679–1685
Succeeded by
Preceded by Member of Parliament for New Romney
1690–1695
With: John Brewer
Succeeded by
Preceded by Member of Parliament for New Romney
1696–1701
With: John Brewer
Succeeded by
Baronetage of England
Preceded by
William Sedley
Baronet

(of Ailesford)
1656–1701
Extinct