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.

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 spelled 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, the brother Charles was knighted by William III after the coronation in 1689 and created a baronet in 1702. 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.

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.

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