The strangest aspects of the human experience

The Earl of Rochester

06/11/2026
It's April 1647. England is in chaos but yet it starts out as a year of peace, since Parliament was victorious in the First Civil War. But the war bred instability, so the people of England and Ireland deal with it the best they can. The Scots had captured King Charles I and so 1647 also begins with Charles signing a secret treaty with the Scots which would have put England under the law and rule of Presbyterianism. Cromwell, who led the Parliament armies, has fallen ill, and while he's recovering, Charles tries to get back on the throne. He's eventually executed for high treason in 1649.
And in the middle of all of this, John Wilmot is born. He's better known as the Earl of Rochester, a writer of filthy poems and debauchery, and an outspoken critic of Puritanism and a well-known satirist who had no problems turning his wits on the elite and wealthy.

Episode: File 0159: Flooding the Earl of Christie Pits Park

Release Date: Jun 11 2026

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It always amuses me when those born into wealth find ways to skewer those with money. Normally, like breeds like, but John Wilmot would hold quite a bit of contempt for the rich over the course of his rather short life. John was born at Ditchley Manor House, a beautiful estate that had once been the site of a Roman villa and situated in Oxfordshire (South East England). His father, Henry, was Viscount Wilmot and had the role of Earl of Rochester created for him in 1652 for his military service to Charles II during his exile. Henry is described as "a Cavalier legend, a dashing bon vivant and war-hero who single-handedly engineered the future Charles II's escape to the Continent after the disastrous battle of Worcester in 1651." John's mother, Anne St. John, seemed Henry's opposite; a "strong-willed Puritan from a noble Wiltshire family."

Given his father's position and wealth, young John lacked for nothing. But his father died in 1658 and so John inherited the title of Earl of Rochester that April. He was eleven years old. In 1660, Rochester was admitted to Wadham College in Oxford, and while there, it was said that the 13 year old Earl "grew debauched". I had to dig quite a bit to find out what this meant, exactly…I mean 13 years old is a teenager, but a teenager in a time and place where young men became "men" at a pretty young age. I found a scanned copy of Poems by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester that included an introduction by Vivian De Sola Pinto, a Professor of English at the University of Nottingham. It was copyrighted in 1953 and published by Harvard University Press. The introduction goes into some detail about Rochester's life, including this debauchery that happened at a young age.

"The sudden relaxation of the severe Puritan discipline in the University seems to have produced a kind of saturnalia among dons and undergraduate alike. We are told that the young Earl, who had hitherto been a modest and studious youth, 'began to love these disorders too much', and that he 'broke off the Course of his Studies'. His guide to the night-life of Oxford was a rather disreputable don, Dr. Robert Whitehall, Fellow of Merton, who used to lend him a Master's gown to protect him from the Proctors in his nocturnal rambles. The spectacle of the slender, handsome boy of thirteen being 'debauched' in the Oxford taverns under the expert guidance of the hard drinking Fellow of Merton, is not a pleasant one. Whitehall is said to have 'doted' on him and to have 'instructed him in the art of poetry'."

At 14, he was awarded an M.A. by his uncle, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon. It's hard to pinpoint when Rochester gained a deep love of poetry and wordplay and reading, because tales of his heavy drinking and wenching kept the circles of society spinning with rumors. Some scholars think young Rochester's debauchery began during the Restoration (1660-1666).*

*The Restoration, or Stuart Restoration, in England was the "reinstatement of the Stuart monarchy in England, Scotland, and Ireland", replacing the Commonwealth of England (established in 1649 after Charles I was executed). The term "Restoration" is also used to describe Charles II's reign (1660-1685). It was a time of "deliverance from political chaos" and interpreted by many at the time as a "restoration of the natural and divine order", aka the monarchy. Interestingly, the leading figure of the Restoration was Rochester's uncle, the Earl of Clarendon; I think this gives a clearer picture of just how close to real power Rochester was during his entire lifetime.

The young Earl was also given an annual pension by Charles II, as an act of gratitude because of his father's actions to the king's father. And in November 1661, Charles II sent Rochester on a three year Grand Tour of France and Italy. As a reminder, Rochester would have been 14 or 15 at the time. Think of a Grand Tour as like a Rumspringa for young, wealthy European men; they're given a tutor or guardian to watch over them while they gallivant through the countryside. But typically Grand Tours are done around age 21, so Rochester being sent off from ages 14-17 (approximately)....well, it's no wonder the young Earl took full advantage of what the world had to offer.

Under the guidance of physician Andrew Balfour, a Scottish medical doctor, botanist, and antiquary and book collector, and Balfour "drew him to reach such Books, as were most likely to bring him back to love Learning and Study." The pair visited Milan, Florence, Pisa, Bologna, Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Rome, and Naples. When Rochester returned to England, he was an entirely different person. He'd been exposed to different ways of thought and writing, different ways of living, but back in England, he went through the process of being announced at the Restoration Court after his 18th birthday; his debut took place on Christmas Day, 1664. Tales of Rochester's drunken adventures at court were quite popular and written about with glee and scandal, and he started to make a name for himself with his "scurrilous and satirical poetry".

Charles II had a bit of a paternal fondness for the young Earl, and suggested a marriage between Rochester and the wealthy heiress Elizabeth Malet. Malet's relatives were not having that (Rochester was pretty impoverished at this point), so Rochester did what any young, impoverished, foolish dandy would at the time….conspire with his mother to abduct Elizabeth and force her hand into marriage.

The attempted abduction is described thusly by Samuel Pepys, an English writer and Tory politician:

"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."

For his failures and crimes, Rochester spent three weeks in the Tower of London and only gained release by writing an apology to Charles II. I must mention that some scholars believe Malet had a hand in this "abduction" as a way to snub her rather Puritanical relatives.

Rochester spent a fair amount of time trying to redeem himself to the King, including volunteering for the navy in the Second Dutch War in 1665, and the Battle of Vagen made him a war hero. His reward was appointment as a "Gentleman of the Bedchamber" in March 1666, giving him lodgings and an annual pension from the King. Rochester spent a few months helping the King "to dress and undress, serve his meals when dining in private, and sleeping at the foot of the King's bed." Rochester was probably happy to return to the sea in the summer of 1666, where he rather bravely rowed "between vessels under heavy cannon fire".

Now, if someone had tried to kidnap me and force my hand in marriage, I would want nothing to do with them. But Elizabeth Malet seemed taken with Rochester once he returned from his second seafaring military service. Maybe she was just glad to defy her family (who were pissed). Maybe she really loved Rochester. But either way, their courtship blossomed and in January 1667, they eloped. They had four children, with only Lady Elizabeth Wilmot surviving past her mid-30s. One child, Charles Wilmot, only lived to be ten years old; the other two daughters made it to their 30s.

As Rochester split his time between family and Court, his reputation for "riotous existence" amongst the powdered and pampered Court nobles was infamous. "[H]e was renowned for drunkenness, vivacious conversation, and 'extravagant frolics'" as part of the Merry Gang. The Merry Gang included several nobles and playwrights of the age and was basically an excuse for all of these men to get rip-roaringly drunk and do stupid shit.

But even amongst the Merry Gang, Rochester was a standout. He was witty, charming, funny, and had become an advocate of atheism and libertinism, and not just because they were essentially licenses to do whatever the hell you wanted. Rochester was passionate about theater and attended shows frequently; some scholars believe he even appeared on stage from time to time. And Rochester's "deep and genuine affection" for his wife (expressed in the many letters they wrote to each other); "[o]ne of his letters to her shows that he scrupulously avoided using her fortune for his own purposes and employed it wholly for her benefit and that of her dependents." She may have even written poetry with or for him.

And this is the dichotomy of the Earl of Rochester - devoted husband, father, and well-liked landlord, and at Court, "he was one of the wildest debauchees", "prince of all the devils of the Town", "the hero of scores of escapades, and the lover of a series of mistresses". And fear of losing the King's favor or exile from Court (which happened a few times) didn't stop Rochester from doing things like writing "In the Isle of Britain"..."which criticized the King for being obsessed with sex at the expense of his kingdom". (Rochester earned a couple months' exile from Court for that one.)

One of my favorite little Rochester tidbits is from June 1657, showing both Rochester's wit and deep disregard for anything proper or courtly: when viewing a massive sundial the King had put into one of the palace gardens, Rochester is quoted as saying, "What…doest thou stand here to fuck time?" It has been speculated that the comment refers not to the dial itself, but "a painting of the King next to the dial that featured his phallic sceptre". Rochester fled Court again after word got back to the King.

Don't get me wrong - Rochester, by any standards, wasn't a stand-up fellow. Toward the end of his life, when Rochester was already considered persona non grata by the Court, he got into a scuffle with the night watch in 1676. One of his companions was killed by a pike, and Rochester reportedly fled the scene, then went into hiding. He went to Tower Hill, a London borough near the Tower, and started to uh…."practice" medicine under the name Doctor Bendo. He claimed he could treat infertility and other disorders that affected women. It has been suspected that what Rochester was doing was having sex with women who came to see him, thus "helping" them conceive. Quite a downfall from his days at Court.

By 1680, Rochester was gravely ill. What is described by observers and friends at the time is likely some venereal disease combined with the effects of alcoholism. Some scholars debate that he actually died of renal failure due to chronic nephritis, or Bright's disease (kidney swelling and albumin in the urine). Bright's disease wasn't first described until 1827, so the venereal disease guess at the time of Rochester's death certainly wasn't a bad one. On the morning of July 26, 1680, John Wilmot died. He was buried at Spelsbury church in Oxfordshire, by the direction of his mother.

His Legacy

In a way that famous drunken louts like Lord Byron would have ached for, the Earl of Rochester's poetry, wit, charm and passion have made him the preeminent wit of the Restoration. He is "also one of the most original and powerful of English satirists". On the surface, Rochester's poems, which portray "bisexual orgies, public sex, prostitution, impotence, drunkenness, masturbation 'in a pigsty' and rampant sexually transmitted diseases" are scrawled across the history of the time as well. His writings circulated in manuscripts and passed from friend to friend during his life and well after his death. "The great 18th-century critic Samuel Johnson, who admired the poetry, described the aristocrat's 'drunken gaiety and gross sensuality' by which he 'blazed out his youth and his health in lavish voluptuousness'."

Rochester's poetry has lasted for this long because of more than just filth; "Ezra Pound considered his ear for meter one of the best in the history of language." And as this epic line from the Poetry Foundation states: "We can also admire his attitude, which is part YOLO, part philosophical skepticism: he had a gift for shock, but also a habit of seeing through everything. If nothing else has any value, the poems seem to say, at least pleasure is real, albeit fleeting. And if we cannot believe in our own appetites, perhaps we can believe in nothing. What would that be like?"

(I recommend the full Poetry Foundation article, written by Stephanie Burt and linked in my notes; she goes into great detail and breakdown of one of Rochester's lesser-known poems, "Upon Nothing", and if you're an admirer of language, you'll find her analysis fascinating. The full text of "Upon Nothing" can be found HERE)

Burt ends her article with: "Rochester's poem about nothing also turns out to have something to say. If it belongs in a tradition of paradoxical gamesmanship, it also reflects the serious suspicion that nothing lasts, that nothing means anything; it reflects the distrust of abstraction and idealism that Rochester shared with Hobbes and other thinkers in his day."

That distrust fueled both the pleasure-loving extremes of Rochester and his fellow libertines—half glam-rocker, half frat boy—and the experimental, test-everything, take-nothing-for-granted stance of the first experimental scientists. Rochester could not mount the apocalypse of a Pope, or the cosmic narrative of a Milton; what he could do, as well as anybody who wrote poetry in English, was to turn every idea inside out and back-to-front, to break every rule of ethics, conduct and decorum—to leave nothing untouched or untried."

What really makes Rochester stand out is his candidness; he "wrote more candidly about sex than anyone before the 20th century…his poetry, at times pornographic, was not for the faint-hearted". Writer Graham Greene had to wait forty years until "a publisher agreed to bring out his piquant biography, Lord Rochester's Monkey (written in the early 1930s, when Rochester poem anthologies were still wrapped in brown paper and put on the highest shelves in bookstores.)

So if I'm making all this noise about Rochester's filth, we should probably read some. Trigger warnings for uh…everything. Remember, this was written in the 1600s. Let's read "The Disabled Debauchee", still one of the most lewd poems in the English language to date. It's about a pox-riddled soldier who suffered injury in battles and is now telling his story to someone else

Other Rochester hits include:

  • "His Satyr against Reason and Mankind, with its mockery of the idea of man as a rational animal, foreshadowed the unsmiling comic genius of Jonathan Swift: "I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear/ Or anything but that vain animal/ Who is so proud of being rational."

  • "Signior Dildo, a satire on social climbing and careerist bed-hopping within the court, was such a success that for a while dildoes became known as "signiors"

Rochester had no issues writing about the profane and lewd, surely, but in doing so, and in the wake of rabid Puritanism before he was born, he had an air about him that was, I would guess, a relief. Relief against the staid and stale Court, relief against coming out of a war alive, relief against the vacuum of art and culture that happens when man kills man. But it's also worth noting that Rochester "was the first English poet to fully reject euphemism…always more than happy to call a dildo a dildo." It's that bluntness that's refreshing, even if it rubs against the grain of our modern day sensibilities and language. As literary critic Johathan Brody Kramnick says, "the libertine understood that 'desire [is] our presiding faculty, the cause behind our actions'."

"As he wrote in his infamous A Satyr Against Reason and Mankind, if he were a…


Spirit free, to choose for my own Share,

What sort of Flesh and Blood I pleas'd to wear,

I'd be a Dog, a Monkey, or a Bear,

Or anything, but that vain Animal,

Who is so proud of being Rational."

Rochester managed to both titillate/scandalize AND aggressively diagnose the lapses in morality of his age: "indulgent, narcissistic egocentricity"..."Rochester instructs in a crucial lesson: that in libertinage there is often scant liberty".

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