The Poems of Lord Rochester John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester

Upbringing and teens

John Wilmot was born at Ditchley House in Oxfordshire on 1 April 1647. His father, Henry, Viscount Wilmot, was created Earl of Rochester in 1652 for his military service to Charles II during the King's exile under the Commonwealth. Paul Davis describes Henry as "a Cavalier legend, a dashing bon vivant and war-hero who single-handedly engineered the future Charles II's escape to the Continent (including the famous concealment in an oak tree) after the disastrous battle of Worcester in 1651".[3] His mother, Anne St. John, was a strong-willed Puritan from a noble Wiltshire family.[5]

From the age of seven, Rochester was privately tutored, two years later attending the grammar school in nearby Burford.[6] His father died in 1658, and John Wilmot inherited the title of the Earl of Rochester in April of that year.[3] In January 1660, Rochester was admitted as a Fellow commoner to Wadham College, Oxford, a new and comparatively poor college.[7] Whilst there, it is said, the 13-year-old "grew debauched". In September 1661 he was awarded an honorary M.A. by the newly elected Chancellor of the university, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, a family friend.[8]

As an act of gratitude towards the son of Henry Wilmot, Charles II conferred on Rochester an annual pension of £500. In November 1661 Charles sent Rochester on a three year Grand Tour of France and Italy, and appointed the physician Andrew Balfour as his governor.[9] This exposed him to an unusual degree to European (especially French) writing and thought.[10] In 1664 Rochester returned to London, and made his formal début at the Restoration court on Christmas Day.[3][11]

It has been suggested by a number of scholars that the King took a paternal role in Rochester's life. Charles II suggested a marriage between Rochester and the wealthy heiress Elizabeth Malet. Her relatives opposed marriage to the impoverished Rochester, who conspired with his mother to abduct the young Countess. Samuel Pepys described the attempted abduction in his diary on 28 May 1665:

Thence to my Lady Sandwich's, where, to my shame, I had not been a great while before. Here, [I told] her a story of my Lord Rochester's running away on Friday night last with Mrs. Mallett, the great beauty and fortune of the North, who had supped at White Hall with Mrs. Stewart, and was going home to her lodgings with her grandfather, my Lord Haly, by coach; and was at Charing Cross seized on by both horse and foot men, and forcibly taken from him, and put into a coach with six horses, and two women provided to receive her, and carried away. Upon immediate pursuit, my Lord of Rochester (for whom the King had spoke to the lady often, but with no successe [sic]) was taken at Uxbridge; but the lady is not yet heard of, and the King mighty angry, and the Lord sent to the Tower.[12]

18-year-old Rochester spent three weeks in the Tower, and was released only after he wrote a penitent apology to the King.[3]

Rochester attempted to redeem himself by volunteering for the navy in the Second Dutch War in the winter of 1665, serving under the Earl of Sandwich.[13] His courage at the Battle of Vågen, serving on board the ship of Thomas Teddeman, made him a war hero.[13] Pleased with his conduct, Charles appointed Rochester a Gentleman of the Bedchamber in March 1666, which granted him prime lodgings in Whitehall and a pension of £1,000 a year.[14] The role encompassed, one week in every four, Rochester helping the King to dress and undress, serve his meals when dining in private, and sleeping at the foot of the King's bed.[3] In the summer of 1666, Rochester returned to sea, serving aboard HMS Victory under Edward Spragge.[13] He again showed extraordinary courage in battle, including rowing between vessels under heavy cannon fire, to deliver Spragge's messages around the fleet.[15][16]

Upon returning from sea, Rochester resumed his courtship of Elizabeth Malet.[17] Defying her family's wishes, Malet eloped with Rochester again in January 1667, and they were married at the Knightsbridge chapel.[18] They had four children: Lady Anne Wilmot (1669–1703), Charles Wilmot (1671–1681), Lady Elizabeth Wilmot (1674–1757) and Lady Malet Wilmot (1676–1708/1709).

In October 1667, the monarch granted Rochester special licence to enter the House of Lords early, despite being seven months underage.[3] The act was an attempt by the King to bolster his number of supporters among the Lords.[19]

Teenage actress Nell Gwyn "almost certainly" took him as her lover; she was later to become the mistress of Charles II.[3] Gwyn remained a lifelong friend and political associate, and her relationship with the King gave Rochester influence and status within the Court.[3]

Twenties and last years

Rochester's life was divided between domesticity in the country and a riotous existence at court, where he was renowned for drunkenness, vivacious conversation, and "extravagant frolics" as part of the Merry Gang (as Andrew Marvell described them).[20] The Merry Gang flourished for about 15 years after 1665 and included Henry Jermyn; Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset; John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave; Henry Killigrew; Sir Charles Sedley; the playwrights William Wycherley and George Etherege; and George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. Gilbert Burnet wrote of him that, "For five years together he was continually Drunk ... [and] not ... perfectly Master of himself ... [which] led him to ... do many wild and unaccountable things."[8] Pepys's Diary records one such occasion on 16 February 1669 when Rochester was invited to dine with the King and the Dutch ambassador:

The King dining yesterday at the Dutch ambassador's, after dinner they drank and were pretty merry; and among the rest of the King's company there was that worthy fellow my Lord of Rochester, and Tom Killigrew, whose mirth and raillery offended the former so much that he did give Tom Killigrew a box on the ear in the King's presence, which do give much offence to the people here at Court ...[21]

His actions were considered an offence against the King, or a lèse-majesté, and he was banned from the court, although the King soon called for his return.[3]

In 1673, Rochester began to train Elizabeth Barry as an actress.[3] She went on to become the most famous actress of her age.[3] He took her as his mistress in 1675.[3] The relationship lasted for around five years, and produced a daughter, before descending into acrimony after Rochester began to resent her success.[3] Rochester wrote afterwards, "With what face can I incline/To damn you to be only mine? ... Live up to thy mighty mind/And be the mistress of mankind".[22]

When the King's advisor and friend of Rochester, George Villiers, lost power in 1673, Rochester's standing fell as well.[3] At the Christmas festivities at Whitehall of that year, Rochester delivered a satire to Charles II, "In the Isle of Britain" – which criticized the King for being obsessed with sex at the expense of his kingdom.[3] Charles's reaction to this satirical portrayal resulted in Rochester's exile from the court until February.[3] During this time Rochester dwelt at his estate in Adderbury.[3] Despite this, in February 1674, after much petitioning by Rochester, the King appointed him Ranger of Woodstock Park.[3]

In June 1675 "Lord Rochester in a frolick after a rant did ... beat downe the dyill (i.e. sundial) which stood in the middle of the Privie Garding, which was esteemed the rarest in Europ".[23] John Aubrey learned what Rochester said on this occasion when he came in from his "revells" with Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, and Fleetwood Sheppard to see the object: "'What ... doest thou stand here to fuck time?' Dash they fell to worke".[8] It has been speculated that the comment refers not to the dial itself, which was not phallic in appearance, but a painting of the King next to the dial that featured his phallic sceptre.[24] Rochester fled the court again.[3]

Rochester fell into disfavour again in 1676. During a late-night scuffle with the night watch, one of Rochester's companions, Roger Downes, was killed by a pike-thrust. Rochester was reported to have fled the scene of the incident, and his standing with the monarch reached an all-time low.[25] Following this incident, Rochester briefly fled to Tower Hill, where he impersonated a mountebank "Doctor Bendo". Under this persona, he claimed skill in treating "barrenness" (infertility), and other gynaecological disorders. Gilbert Burnet wryly noted that Rochester's practice was "not without success", implying his intercession of himself as a surreptitious sperm donor.[26] On occasion, Rochester also assumed the role of the grave and matronly Mrs. Bendo, presumably so that he could inspect young women privately without arousing their husbands' suspicions.[27]

Death

By the age of 33, Rochester was dying from what is usually described as the effects of tertiary syphilis, gonorrohea, or other venereal diseases, combined with the effects of alcoholism. Carol Richards has disputed this, arguing that it is more likely that he died of renal failure due to chronic nephritis (Bright's disease).[28] His mother had him attended in his final weeks by her religious associates, particularly Gilbert Burnet, later Bishop of Salisbury.

After hearing of Burnet's departure from his side, Rochester muttered his last words: "Has my friend left me? Then I shall die shortly". In the early morning of 26 July 1680, Rochester died "without a shudder or a sound".[29] He was buried at Spelsbury church in Oxfordshire.

A deathbed renunciation of libertinism and conversion to Anglican Christianity, Some Passages of the Life and Death of the Honourable John Wilmot Earl of Rochester, was published by Reverend Burnet.[30] Because this account appears in Burnet's own writings, its accuracy has been disputed by some scholars, who accuse Burnet with having shaped the account of Rochester's denunciation of libertinism to enhance his own reputation. On the other hand, Graham Greene, in his biography of Wilmot, calls Burnet's book "convincing".[31]