Dildos, Defamation & Disguise - John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester 1673

Ramble on in search of filth with Restoration England's most promiscuous, booze addled, royalty offending, saucy genius - Restoration poet and libertine, John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester.

It's a disgraceful double-ended tale of Italian sex woodwork, highway robbery, park abuse and rhyming couplets.

•  How many years did Rochester spend permanently drunk?
• How offensive was the poem he accidentally gave to King Charles II?
• What happened under the shrubbery in Hyde park when the sun went down?
• Was Rochester brilliant or awful or both?

 The answer to these and so many more questions will be answered in episode 35 of Rogues Gallery Uncovered - the podcast of bad behaviour in period costume.

He was the most outrageous character in 17th century London whose scandalous life and bawdy satire shocked the royal court - and even offended king Charles II.
Is his infamous reputation as a debauchee well deserved? open a bottle of claret, loosen your doublet and find out.  

Read the full text of "A Ramble in Hyde Park" HERE

Thanks for listening. Stay Roguish!
Email: simon@roguesgalleryonline.com   
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Rogues Gallery Uncovered

Bad behaviour in period costume 

A non-judgmental gobble into the scandalous lives of history’s greatest libertines’ lotharios and complete bastards  

This podcast contains very very adult themes, very very colourful language and Restoration poetry. 

If the rhyming description of energetic sexual activities causes you offense, 

Then I can offer only one defence 

It may be meagre recompense 

But it all took place in the long past-tense

It took me longer than you’d think to make that up. 

 Dildoes defamation and disguise. 

Rambling on in search of filth with the libertines libertine….Restoration rake, satirist, alcoholic and STD enthusiast

 John Wilmot 2nd earl of Rochester 

 I’m quite excited about this episode, as it features someone who has been requested by several listeners and who is the subject of one of my favourite movies – the libertine starring Johnny depp – 

Superb movie, superb performances and a wonderful score from Michael Nyman, 

Anyway, before we drink deeply from the flagon of roguery I thought id give a traditional shout out to another lovable rogue who has got in touch via simon@roguesgalleryonline.com – address in the show notes. 

Tamara GQ who is based I believe in los Angeles – thank you so much for your kind words I’m really glad you enjoy the podcast and that you are recommending rogues gallery to your friends.

Im also really grateful for your Latin American rogue suggestion “  multi ethnic diplomat, suspected spy & well endowed pepper mill namesake Porfirio Rubirosa” that’s such a great description 

I will add him to the list and have fun researching more of his scandalous deeds.

Don’t forget im on the hunt for more non-European rogues so keep the suggestions coming either via direct email or the website roguresgalleryuncovered.com link is in the you know where. 

Id also like to thank the wonderfully named “Fighting Irish” who also got in touch.

 The remainder of this episode is going to be a little different from normal in that it features 2 tales. 

The first is by way of an introduction to John Wilmot so you get a sense of his extraordinarily roguish character the second is a dirty deep dive into one of his most famous poems “ a ramble in Hyde Park” 

Both are set in the same year.

Before we start  “ allow me to be frank at the commencement”

The following tale is written in the present tense of the period in which its set…. and as such, may contain attitudes and opinions of the protagonists and their times which would today be considered unacceptable. 

As im not a waywardly self destructive seventeenth century literary genius with a raging libido and no respect for anything. 

Honestly 

Those attitudes and opinions are OBVIOUSLY not mine. 

 I do hope my reading of a fruity poem at the end does it justice however. 

 London 1673

Bloody hell John, what have you done!

You were supposed to have shown the king a witty poem about dildos, instead you presented a verse accusing him of being a whore mongering idler with his brain in his britches 

He’ll have your bollocks on a spike and you'll never be welcomed at court again - and you say you did it “by accident”.

 Signor Dildo is a really funny poem – unless you’re an Italian nobleman I suppose 

Who wouldn’t laugh at the thought of dozens of highborn ladies hopelessly in love with hand carved Italian pizzle , and all of the husband's furious because now that they’ve got tireless wooden tools, their wives no longer need them in the bedroom 

I nearly pissed myself when I read it 

 How does it go..

You would take him at first for no person of note 

because he appears in a plain leather coat

 but when you his virtuous abilities know

you'll fall down and worship Signore Dildo

 To tell you the truth though  if every woman at court did take to pleasuring herself with a tarse-shaped piece of Italian hardwood, you, Sedley, Etheridge, Killigrew, Villiers and the rest of the merry gang would be the first to jump in the Thames. 

This is my favourite bit…

 This senior is sound safe ready and dumb, 

as ever was candle carrot or thumb, 

then away with these nasty devices and show,

 how you rate the just merit of senior dildo. 

 Its brilliant and his majesty would have laughed his wig off  - if you hadn't been drunk for the last five years, you may have actually given it to him instead of a verse that you only wrote for a select few.

You idiot.

I do wonder sometimes if you don't enjoy courting calamity. 

I mean Charles has been indulgent of you in the past, no doubt but you're not a beautiful boy of eighteen anymore. 

 You're ten years older, your pickled with wine and judging from the sores on your face and the blood in your piss……you're more poxed than a ha’penny French whore.

 Ive lost count of the number of times that you’ve pushed your luck 

 Do you remember back in 65’ when you had lovely Elizabeth Malet kidnapped by footpads because you couldn't charm your way under her skirts with your fancy poetry.

 I'm not sure how romantic she found being waylaid in the middle of the night by the armed men you hired. 

Did she swoon with passion as they stopped her coach at the point of a musket and bustled her away to meet with you at a secluded location.

You were obviously too inflamed with lust to think clearly, because you only got her as far as Oxford before getting yourself arrested.

Not surprisingly, the King was livid – even he draws the line at kidnap -  so off to the tower you went - three weeks later though you're out.

Perhaps he found the deliberately simpering apology you wrote to him amusing, – “ I would have chosen death ten thousand times rather than displease you.”  Ugh.

 I'll say this, mealy mouthed apology or not, you certainly proved you'd got spunk when you sailed away with the fleet, afterwards to fight the Dutch at the Battle of Orford ness. 

They say you were a real hero - rowing between ships and delivering vitally important messages while cannon fire  raged all around you. 

 The thing is, you'd only been back on dry land five minutes before you got yourself banished again. 

I know it was probably a very boring social event but did you really think it was a good idea to mock lady Dorothy Howard by convincing everyone that she liked seducing young girls? 

You whispered these totally false allegations to pretty little Anne Temple and watched with glee as she burst into tears and ran to her room.

You no doubt knew that full of innocent concern lady Howard would soon follow to offer comfort.

And that – possibly prompted by yourself – the matron of the bedchamber would only a few moments later, burst in to find her tyring to embrace a sobbing half naked teenager.  

When the matron told of what she had seen, everybody thought Howard was forcing Temple to play the game of flats and by the time the truth came out she was a complete laughingstock. 

I believe You got yourself packed off to the continent for that. 

And while you were gone Howard made plain to all how she felt about you 

He is nothing but a danger to our sex  - SHE WROTE - and that to such a degree that no women listens to him three times without irretrievably losing her reputation. 

He applauds your taste, submits to your feelings and even though he himself does not believe a single word of what he's saying he makes you believe it all.

 I think she's got a point, who else would have the guts to take the King of England whoring in disguise – like you did recently -  and then run away with his majesty’s clothes and purse while he's busy pleasuring a strumpet.

 Charles had to ask the bawd if she'd give him credit – as he was her ruler.

 As far as she was concerned though , he was just a lanky penniless rogue trying to get something for nothing, so she gave him a mouth full of abuse.

I would have loved to have seen her face when she realized that the tall black haired man was telling the truth - yet still he forgave you.

 This time though, I think you run out of luck - the King likes fucking, he likes wine, and he thinks dildos are funny (have you heard customs men have just burnt a huge consignment smuggled in from France?) but what His Majesty also demands is the respect of his subjects and you give him this….

 In th’ isle of Britain, long since famous-grown

For breeding the best cunts in Christendom,

There reigns, and oh! long may he reign and thrive,

The easiest King and best-bred man alive.

Him no ambition moves to get renown [5]

Like the French fool, that wanders up and down

Starving his people, hazarding his crown.

Peace is his aim, his gentleness is such,

And love he loves, for he loves fucking much.

  Nor are his high desires above his strength: [10]

His scepter and his prick are of a length;

And she may sway the one who plays with th’ other,

And make him little wiser than his brother.

Poor Prince! thy prick, like thy buffoons at Court,

Will govern thee because it makes thee sport. [15]

’Tis sure the sauciest prick that e’er did swive,

The proudest, per emptor iest prick alive.

Though safety, law, religion, life lay on ’t,

’Twould break through all to make its way to cunt.

Restless he rolls about from whore to whore, [20]

A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.

 To Carwell, the most dear of all his dears,

The best relief of his declining years,

Oft he bewails his fortune, and her fate:

To love so well, and be beloved so late. [25]

For though in her he settles well his tarse,

Yet his dull, graceless bollocks hang an arse.

This you’d believe, had I but time to tell ye

The pains it costs to poor, laborious Nelly,

Whilst she employs hands, fingers, mouth, and thighs, 

Ere she can raise the member she enjoys.

All monarchs I hate, and the thrones they sit on,

 From the hector of France to the cully of Britain.

The poem was named “A Satyr on Charles II” and if you are puzzled by some of the references Rochester made 

Nelly

Nell Gwyn, Charles’s most famous mistress.

Hang an arse is 

“A vulgar phrase, signifying to be tardy, sluggish, or dilatory"

The French fool

Louis 14th.

Carwell

Louise de Keroualle, the Duchess of Portsmouth. She was another of Charles lovers.

The explosive effect of Rochester’s mistake was recorded in a letter dated 20 January 1674 which said   “My Lord Rochester fled from Court some time since for delivering (by mistake) into the King’s hands a terrible lampoon of his own making against the King, instead of another the King asked him for.”

 I have yet to determine who sent the letter and to whom but it’s fantastic that it survived.

Rochester indeed fled to the countryside but his exile even for this did not last long for after a lot of petitioning he was allowed back to court and made Ranger of Woodstock Park.

His behaviour soon got him not more trouble but that is another story.

However before doing a runner, Rochester wrote a satire that he actually intended all to see, based upon his own dissolute routines and observations, it’s a smutty window into 17th century public green spaces entitled “ A Ramble is St James Park” 

If you wish to take a look at the full the text of this poem you will find a link in the show notes

So without further ado lets go back to….. 

England 1673 

John Wilmot, the second earl of Rochester, is in the mood for spot of poetry. 

He’s taken himself out of London to rest a while in the country. 

His kidneys are giving him jip which could be because he has spent most of the past five years in a state of almost permanent drunkenness.  

One of his favourite drinking companions Groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of York, Henry Saville - whom he often makes fun of for suffering dreadfully with “piles” - has just had to flee to the continent after in inebriated attempt to ravish Lady Northumberland - a highly regarded society widow.

Rochester sympathises with his plight as much as he does his anal discomfort, for he too is no stranger to the powerful effects of lust on one’s better judgment.

Which is why another reason for his aches and pains could be the onset of venereal disease  

It’s no wonder he’s feeling under the weather.

As they often do his thoughts turn to the -  king Charles II.

He ruminates on how the merry monarch has the freedom to behave as badly as he pleases but his royal position keeps the majority of his transgressions hidden from the public.

A respectable façade hiding a seedy underbelly he muses – “it’s a bit like St James Park.”

St James Park is one of the kings’ proudest achievements.

Bought as marshland by Henry VIII a century and a half earlier, it was made into a park by James 1 who filled it with exotic animals and birds from all over the known world.

Inspired by the royal gardens he’d explored during his exile in France, James grandson Charles had further transformed the space by introducing a wide avenue along which to promenade, a Paille-Maille alley – it’s a French game a bit like croquet - 36 acres of orchards and a winding waterway known as “the canal.” 

The park had become a favourite haunt of the king who could often be found there walking his yapping dogs or flirting with wanton orange sellers.

By day, this royal association saw respectable London flock to St James’s to bask in his favour and revel in their own importance. 

By night however it was a meeting place for the lusty and the lewd who ignored the high walls and locked gates and made free with each other in the shadows. 

Some enterprising sorts even had their own doors built in to the brickwork of the wall, until the king told Sir Christopher Wren to fill them in – he should have stuck to building cathedrals.

Rochester has a complex relationship with Charles and possesses no fear of offending him with the many scurrilous verses he pens at the king’s expense. 

He’s the complete opposite of poets like the arse lickingly obsequious Edmund Waller whose recent work, fawningly entitled “A Poem on St. James’s Park as lately improved by his majesty” portrays the place as a kind of earthy paradise of which God himself would be envious.

Of the king playing a gentle game of Paille-Maille he writes 

His shape so comely and his limbs so strong

Confirm our hopes we shall obey him long.

No sooner has he toucht the flying ball,

But 'tis already more then half the mall,

What a Prick!  

With lines like that Waller deserves to have his dubious talents mocked as only Rochester can.

As he nibbles his quill, Rochester decides to pen his version of Wallers ode as a “Ramble”  - an increasingly popular narrative device during which a well-heeled young man goes out in the world in search of low pleasures.  

Chuckling to himself, he begins to write….”A Ramble in St James Park”  

Rochester is getting pissed with some of his disreputable friends at a tavern called “The Bear and Harrow” near Drury Lane.

The conversation turns – as it does when one is in one’s cups – to sexual exploits, with each man attempting to outdo his fellows in tales of debauchery.

Rochester however – unlike his boastful friends – is not so drunk that he is incapable of getting his tarse up.

He takes his leave and heads off to St James Park – the fresh air will do him good and once he gets there; he can pick up a prostitute in one of its leafy alcoves for a restorative shag.

As he lurches to his destination, Rochester is lost in contemplation - The park he muses, might have recently been given king Charles royal seal of approval but for centuries it’s been a place literally dripping with sex.

In fact, there’s been so much rampant swivEing that’s gone on there over the years even the trees have a gone a bit weird.

This he puts down to the fact that in ancient times when blue painted picts first wanted to use the park for alfresco carnal exercise – the women these fierce warriors had arranged to meet there rarely made an appearance.

Apparently jilting ones lover was in fashion at the time although how Rochester knows this is a mystery. 

Convulsed with sexual frustration, generations of pictish men had no recourse but to pleasure themselves all over the grass. 

As a result of this somewhat unique form of fertilizer, huge trees had sprung up - the branches of which twinned around each other like images from Rochester’s favourite pornographic engravings. 

This collection of smutty imagery was first committed to paper in 1524 by the illustrator Giulio Romano and were widely appreciated by many of the Restoration Rakes who each had their own copies – for reference purposeless, you understand.

It’s beneath this lewd foliage that the main pastime of those visiting the park after dark takes place – although Rochester, being Rochester, he alludes to the most shocking examples of  “buggeries, rapes and incest.”   

During the day Rochester ponders, the park plays host to the wealthy and the fashionable – collectively referred to as “The Towne.” - but at night all social pretences are cast aside.

High class courtesans mix freely with back street trollops in earning a coin or two, while ladies of repute embrace their lovers in shadowy glades next to low born servants snatching a few fleeting moments of grubby pleasure.

Even ragpickers who rummage through rubbish looking for scraps of cloth to sell can walk alongside wealthy heiresses in this world where all are equal with their skirts up.

The same is true of the men who frequent the park - noble lords, humble tradesmen’ unkempt servants, dandified fops, listless poets and brutal jailors, all are one with their britches around their ankles.

So far, the “Ramble” has been a satire on the hypocrisy of class, and a subtle dig at Charles II who beneath his robe of royal respectability is just as enthusiastic a cocksman as the rest of them – and not above taking the odd mistress or three out for a flirt among the hedgerows.

But things are about to change.    

Rochester’s Eden of equitable promiscuity is turned upside down when he spots one of his former lovers who is taking a midnight stroll of her own.

He refers to her as Corinna – the name of an ancient Greek poet - but in reality, it’s more likely Rochester is thinking of Elizabeth Foster a tavern keepers niece described a “damsel of low degree” who had screwed half the rakes in London and given them all the French Pox – Rochester included.

The ramble starts to become a vengeful tirade.

Corinna looks at Rochester like he’s a lump of horse shit in a feathered hat which severely bruises his not inconsiderable ego.

To a casual observer, he reckons, it seems she is obviously slumming it from the heaven of being in a relationship with him – “a despairing god”

But what makes his blood boil is that she is being courted by not one but three young men each eager to get their end away - and she is encouraging all of them.

None of these “Knights O the elbow” has very much in their favour, in fact to Rochester they are a trio of contemptible losers.

The first is a royal courtier – a relative, it transpires, of the woman who looks after the maids of honour at the royal household. 

This preening popinjay no doubt got his position at court because of his family connections and is so lacking in a personality of his own that when he hears from Sir Benjamin Sutton – a gentleman usher of the Privy council – that the king only eats mutton from Banstead Downs in Surrey, he swears that he will henceforth eat nothing else.

In fact, everything this sad poseur does is “by Rote” nothing comes from genuine feeling or imagination – all is false, an affectation.

The fact that even his lust is fake and his lovemaking probably just as predictable makes him beneath contempt.

The second fellow is a law student at Greys Inn – a myopic weasel who stands in the front row at playhouses squinting at the leading ladies. 

Not only does he steal handkerchiefs from other members of the tightly packed audience but he also steals lines and mannerisms from the plays he watches - to pass off as his own when courting women. 

To make matters worse, it seems as though he is sleeping with his landlady as a way of avoiding paying the rent.  

More fakery, more deceit!     

The third does not even possess the unsavoury traits of his fellows. 

He is the eldest son of a rich woman, killing time before he gets his inheritance, who thinks that by associating with these two halfwits he’ll learn how to be a flashing gentleman blade. 

He is copying the copiers and as such leaves no mark of his upon the world. 

Corinna though laps up their attention however charmless and unskilled and with her loins obviously aflame bundles the three lads into a hackney carriage so she can ride them at home till dawn.

This is just the kind of libidinous rakehell behaviour that gets young gentlemen a slap on the back and a glass of claret but female rakes it seems are not so favoured by Rochester.

At least not this one.

If she had the horn because she’d been thinking of him all night and needed a little something to scratch the itch, that would have been fine.

She could straddle an erect buffoon or even a well-hung member of the clergy if her lust was genuine – and inspired by Rochester. 

But this rutting for the sake of it is just not acceptable.

And it’s not as if Rochester hasn’t suffered. 

He had happily coupled with her in the old days when she’d come back to his lodgings after a night humping all and sundry even though it was obvious to him that she was just using his seed as a remedy for indigestion after having a big meal.

Rochester generously emptied his balls even though a score of burly porters and footmen had been there before him.

What a saint.

The main reason for Rochester’s ill mood – in the poem at least - is that unlike most of his previous conquests, he stayed with Corinna after he’d taken his pleasure and opened up to her emotionally – revealing his deepest hopes and sensitive fears, Stuff that would get him laughed out of town if his riotous mates ever found out. 

So, from here on he goes in for the kill.

He wishes stinking womb vapours upon her and hopes that her unnatural lusts will eventually drive her insane – a more “poetic” way of saying he hopes she catches syphilis. 

In a passionate declaration he says that schoolboys will stop wanking, cowards will stop pleading, retired whores will give up painting as a hobby, priests will stop buggering, heaven will get crabs and doctors will start believing in Jesus before he will stop hating her.

He will wait he says until she is married before unleashing a tidal wave of scandal – truth and lies which will humiliate her husband and have her ostracised from society, socially and financially ruined. 

And he will make sure that she knows full well that it was he who was the architect of her destruction. 

THE END

Rochester puts his pen down and takes another draught of wine, all this poetry has put him in fine fettle. 

He decides the time is right to return to court – after first having his pox looked at by a surgeon and re-establishing cordial relations with his wife. 

The King, he confidently expects will be over joyed to see him.

And we now know how that turned out.

Don’t forget if you want to read “A Ramble in St James Park” in full there is a link to it in the show notes.

I will say no more about John Wilmott as there are at least two more episodes to written about him, but if you ever get the chance I strongly urge you to watch and enjoy The Libertine” starring Johnny depp  

Actually I will add that the libertines libertine was a savage and skilled satirist who skewered everyone irrespective of status, station or social mores – he was fearless and nothing was off limits to his satirical eye.

I think we need more like him.  

 Next time on Rogues Gallery Uncovered 

STOP IT OR YOU’LL GO MAD, OR FEEBLE OR BLIND                 …AND THEN YOU’LL DIE!!

A TERRIFYING MEDICAL ODYSSEY IN TO THE MID NINETEENTH CENTURY’S GREATEST SOCIAL CATASTROPHE 

THE EVILS OF MASTURBATION 

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That’s all for now …see you yesterday.