Raunchy Restoration: John Wilmot & the Sexy, Scandalous Poetry of King Charles's Court

whole time, I did love troll dolls growing up. I have a bunch at my mouth. I wasn't thinking like the cute trolls. I was thinking like the trolls from Willow. But that way, no, um, no fellas out there or or no even industrious ladies who might really put their minds to it, none of them are going to steal you away. Well. I don't love that, but all right, you don't love that. I don't want you stolen a way. I don't love having my face covered up with a troll. Well,

but it's for a romantic purpose, is it. Yeah? I want you all to myself. So I'm gonna lock you in a room, never let anyone see your face, and uh then you'll be mine forever. That's that. Come on, that's any fairy tale prints, but basically do that. Yeah, and they're so problematic, have you ever? Okay, look, welcome back to the show, everybody, or welcome to the show new listeners. Because the ridiculous romantic cult is growing every week. There's something I got to talk about, Diana, you know

what it is? Oh my god, y'all, we won't okay. I usually try to keep this down to like five minutes a banter or less before we get to the show. So we saw our our our theaters are are freaking ore. Oh my god, I don't know. I can't. I'm telling you when I tell you, I haven't been just ear to ear grinning for three eight hours since I was a child. I can't believe this movie. It was so like it was dumb. How good it was, I don't get it. And we also were very fortunate because we

get to see it at the Plaza Theater. It's like a historic theater in Atlanta, one of the coolest places, and the room it was very full, screening and everybody's just hooting and hollering and having a blast. It was just so much fun. So if you get a chance

to see it in a theater, I highly recommend. I had told someone it made me feel really good about humanity in this way, not just the movie itself, which did in a in a really great way, but just the experience of seeing it with a crowd of people and being like, oh, man, I really love it when a bunch of people are all just having a good time and we're like, oh, this is why we're here, right to like have fun and laugh and be excited. Uh,

that's the best thing about groups of people. Yeah. And I'm so used to like, let's say, d iving, which makes you very angry about being in groups of people, or the grocery store things like that where I'm like, Oh, I just want to go live in the woods, kill them all. And then the end of this movie, I was like, man, I'm so glad that I was with all these other people watching this. Yeah, that was that's

very true. Again, I really feel like seeing it in the theater with everybody willing to like hoot and holler and react was just just a beautiful cherry on top. And if you're like me, like I can't stand people talking and making noise and stuff during movies, but there's times where it's like joyful and that's what this was. You needed it and it it added so much and it wasn't like, oh, you're interrupting or I can't hear

what's going on. Bonus that the movie is mostly not in English, so it's all subtitled for the most part, so you were going to miss any dialogue. People could scream and you're like, I still know what's happening. I have not missed anything because that did help. Go see it. However,

you can just see it's incredible, incredible. So that's gonna be our banter for the day because we got a awesome story to get Yeah, because today we want to talk to you about John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester, and you might remember his name if you cast your memory back and you had listened to our episode about the Brief History of sex Toys that we did with Ridiculous History. We invited them to Poetry Corner to read some of Wilmot's poem signor Dildo, where he was talking

about the new sex toy out of Italy. I think that one. I think so too. They were excited to read a sense I'm senior Dildo. But as a fan of the show and mother of the host, Barbara Banks said, this guy deserves his own episode because he had like a bunch of affairs. He abducted an heiress, he disguised himself as a gynecologist, and he wrote some of the dirtiest poetry of the Restoration era, not just Senor Dildo,

about other things. So let's hear about the body poet and the sharpest wit in King Charles's court, John Wilmot, the second Earl of rochest Yes, let's go, Hey the French, come listen. Well, Elia and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no matchmaking, a romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships, a love. It might be any type of person at all, and abstract cons at a concrete wall. But if there's a story, were the second glance Ridiculous Romans a production

of I Heart Radio. So John Wilmot was born on April Fool's Day in sixty seven. To Henry Wilmot, it's a perfect day for him to be born. Already have a fool. You've set yourself up for a wacky life. I'm ready to be the King's jester right now. He was born to Henry Wilmot, who had been created the Earl of Rochest because he pretty much singlehandedly helped Charles the Second escape to the continent after Oliver Cromwell and his cronies executed Charles the First made England into a

republic and Cromwell started ruling as the Lord Protectorate. Great. Okay, so people get mad at the king drop his head off, and his son, Charles the Second, I assume, was like, somebody get me out of here. Yeah, because after the Battle of Wooster. Mm hmmm. Which I think that's how you say. It's spelled Worcester, but I think it's pronounced in Boston it's Wooster. I don't know or not. That's a good point. They might in England they might say.

Well anyway, so he basically helped him escape and and survive in exile. This is known as the Interregnum period of English history, and Cromwell and his government were Puritans, and they basically thought people should not have any fun whatsoever, so they outlawed theater, partying, music, and literally Christmas like they canceled Christmas. I'm sorry, So there was really a war on Christmas in English legit war on Christmas Like it was illegal to be found buying food associated with

the Christmas pief. I guess a boiled goose. I don't know, but if you were walking out the grocery store with a roast, they would clap you. In Irons, I guess they even had cops patrolling the streets busting people for singing carols. I mean, didn't say pretty joyless. Eleven years well, thanks in part to Henry Wilmot, Charles the Second was

able to stay alive. He was crowned the King of Scotland and Ireland after Cromwell's death, and then he came on home and restored the monarchy for better or worse, which is why his reign is known as the Restoration Period. Okay, so Charles the Second obviously had a lot of reason to be pretty grateful to old Henry you know very much? Uh oh, you will favor us. Definitely saved my life and put me back on the throw and I can get back to having Christmas parties again, thank you. So

after Henry died in sixty eight. The King showed his appreciation by taking an interest in his son John. So John was privately tutored from the age of seven, and when he was twelve he attended Wadham College, Oxford, which was pretty newly established. This college wasn't really like that respected yet, and so it was kind of a party school. No one looking around saying, now you have to respect the history of Warham College at Oxford. They're like, no,

we down. This place is brand new. Let's suck it up twice story. Let's like, I don't know why they sound like that. Electric's the rolling Stones. So little John Wilmot's tutor was this guy, Robert Whitehall. And this guy was a hard drinker, but he was quite the wit of his day, snippy and sarcastic and literary, quick minded, and under this guy's influence, John quote grew debauched. So

Robert Whitehall is out there teaching him. You who are not just going to teach you how to rot beautifully and and learn your your scholarly duties, but you're gonna learn how to drink and gamble and womanizes all the hits, learn to have a little fun. Yeah, I want you to be not just book smart, but street smart, and not just street smart but ladies smart, cheek smart, sheets smart. But it is a cheek smart, which is also pretty smart. If you're smart around a pair of cheeks, he can

you can go far in this world. I guess that's true. I didn't think about it like that, but all right. When John was fourteen, he was given an honorary masters and Charles the Second awarded him a five hundred pound per year pension to live on. He also had John sent on the Grand Tool of Europe, which is this three year trip through France and Italy, you know, all of Europe. You know. Well, when John got home in sixteen sixty four, he joined Charles's restoration court at only

seventeen years old. He made his bows oddly enough on Christmas Day, which of course had been fully restored at this point. Because of course Charles the Second came in and was like, we're bringing back Christmas everyone. I love a party. Grab your turkey's deck the halls, you know, light up the lights. Seed the reindeer, seed the reindeer. Okay, well, Wilmot may have been an earl, but his family didn't really have that much money. Besides this pension from the

King's sort of an impoverished title. So Charles the second suggested that he marry a wealthy heiress named Elizabeth Mallett, because then he'd have money and Elizabeth would be a countess. Everybody wins, and she was into it. She wrote quote. He was had some tall, graceful, well shaped. His complexion was fair of a rosie hue, and his good reading and wit were striking. He was far too attractive for

a flirtatious fifteen year old to reject out of hand. Moreover, he could write the sort of fashionable, amorous, pastoral poetry that delighted my girlish heart. Fashionable, amorous and pastoral poetry. I'm going to hang onto that description for later. Keep that one, keep that one for yourself. But Elizabeth's family was less enthused because they wanted Elizabeth to marry somebody rich. They want to add to the coffers titles at everything.

They were like, there's a title out there that also has money, Get that guy instead of poor poet dude or whatever. But did our seventeen year old hottie give up? Absolutely not. Instead, John Wilmot did the late sixteen hundreds version of Lloyd Dabbler holding the boom box over his head. He abducted her, not I don't remember saying anything differently, Weirdly, apparently he hatched this plot with his mother. She was like, go get this rich bitch right now, we're going to

snatch her up. But you know, John, he did it

with style. Samuel Pepys, who is best known for keeping a diary for ten years that Shirley historians are probably constantly thinking they're like he stars for he described the scandal in his journal, saying, quote, thence to my Lady Sandwiches, where I told her a story of my Lord Rochester's running away on Friday night last with Miss Mallett, the great beauty and fortune of the North, who had supped at Whitehall with Mrs Stewart and was going home to

her lodgings with her grandfather, my Lord Hailey by coach, and was at Charing Cross, seized on by both horse and footman, and forcibly taken from him and put into a coach with sick horces and two women provided to receive her and carried away. Now what an abduction. Amazing how he straight up stole her from her grandfather's carriage, stuffed her into another one six horses, getting the hell out. Okay,

he wanted to go fast as hell. So I really wanted to point this out because in some of my favorite georget highre books, they talk about guys trying to elope with a like a coach and pair, and everyone's like, what a shabby a fair at least get four? So disappointed? What is that? What are you pour? It's like rolling up and up, you know, a nineteen nineties six Honda Civic, being like, I'm stealing you away, my dear baby, get

in the car. I know. But also please note he had two women there to receive her, so he wasn't trying to ruin her reputation and forced her into marriage. She was going to be respectably chaperone the entire time. So still a very scandalous behavior. But he still did have like he was thinking about her comfort, and it wasn't I mean, she did respond to his affections, right,

I mean, she cared a lot about him. I don't think she liked this, but she liked I don't know, kind of exciting if your true love comes and rescue rescues you from you know, marrying someone you're not as excited about, right, I thought I thought she might have been a little like, oh he really like yeah, I love Also he rolls up with with six horses, like, who's Paul? Now? I know, right, he really spending that on some stuff. It was it was my whole pension.

But that's how much you mean to me, girl. Well, after this kidnapping, John was pretty much immediately caught. Now Elizabeth went back home to her family. The King was super passed. He's like, my buddy, my guy, I'm giving you this money. I'm setting you up. You can't go kidnapping rich girls. You look crazy now I looked dumb for vouching for you. So Lord Rochester was sent to the town hour of London for three weeks to think about what he'd done. He wasn't released until he wrote

a penitent apology to the King. Although we got to say, it feels like it feels like maybe Lord Holly might have been like thinking, like I get an apology, kind of stole my granddaughter right out of my own carriage. I was sitting right there these days. But Rochester wanted to redeem himself, so he volunteered for the Navy in the Second Dutch War in the winter of sixteen sixty five, and his courageous actions made him a war hero. Yeah, he probably did a pretty good job stealing supplies from

enemy lines. I imagine, right, my specialty, give me six horses and twenty four hours you'll have all the cannons doated on by two handmaidens. No less, that's right. But yeah, this this war had a really important effect on this personality because one of his friends was like standing right next to Rochester when he got blown away by a cannon ball, and Rochester had to keep on fighting basically covered in his friends remain very crazy, just you know,

wartime trauma. And it's around then that he kind of became an atheist and pretty nihilistic and sort of sort of became the skeptic that will see in his poetry later on. And yeah, I mean it's no wonder I think you you fight a war and you start to ask like why a lot why a lot um? But his heroism in battle did make Charles so pleased with Rochester that he appointed him a Gentleman of the Bedchamber

in sixteen six which sounds sexy. I've been called a gentleman of the bed chamber myself a few times who called you that. No, this was less sexy than it sounds. It basically entitled John to some nice lodgings and a thousand pounds a year in exchange for one week out of the month where he would help the king dress and undress, he would serve him meals, and he would

sleep at the foot of his bit. And this was like a really big honor to be a gentleman of the bed chamber, which kind of makes sense because you're really close to the king. He tried, clearly trusts you a lot. I'm sure there's like a little bed down there, but of course I see him sleeping at the foot of the thing's bed like a like a like a doberman. You know, he's got a little water dish on the

floor of bone. Now. Later that same year, Rochester returned to the Navy, and he again distinguished himself by delivering messages. That sounds kind of boring, but it was not, because before radio and waukie talkies and stuff, a real guy just had to like run around a battlefield for in this case, row between ships and a fleet under fire to relay orders from the captain or the general or commander or whoever was in charge. So you had to be very quick, you had to be bold, you had

to be incredibly brave. So Rochester was even more of a legend when he came home. Yeah, I mean, you're probably targeting that guy easily got all the orders exactly. They're like, they'll be scattered and confused. So very very crazy job. Just a crazy job, hard pass. Now. John distinguished himself enough that King Charles the Second gave him a special lisense to enter the House of Lords early, even though he was seven months under age. So everything

was coming up Wilmot. Even Elizabeth Mallett decided to forgive him for, you know, kidnapping her from her grandfather, and she ended up eloping with him again by choice. This time she actually wanted to, and in this she defied her family. She married him in secret in January of sixteen sixty seven, and they ended up having four children together. And it seems like John Wilmot really did love her.

One of his poems is dedicated to her. So let's go down to poetry corner and here to my more than meritorious wife by John Wilmot I am by fate slave to your will, and I will be obedient still to show my love. I will compose ye for your fair fingers, ring a posey in which shall be expressed my duty, and how I'll be forever true to ye, with low made legs and sugared speeches, yielding to your fair bum the breeches, and shoo myself and all I can.

You're very humble servant. Jam Wow, I gotta say, I really respect that big stretch in their rhyming duty with true to ye. I love it, true to ye, clever. And then he's like, I know my name is John, but we're just gonna stay. We're just gonna get the rhyming. That's the poets do, and they manipulate language until it fits. Look, and here's the thing. You know, John Wilmot didn't really yield to her fair bum the breeches because he had tons of blings with both men and women throughout his life.

We're going to get into that right after this break. Welcome back, everybody. Yeah. So John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester is doing pretty good at this point in his life. He's around twenty years old. He's making moves in Parliament is married to this hot, rich lady. Um, he's a favorite Charles the Second, And he's hanging out with the Merry Gang, which was like a bunch of dudes who were a lot like John in that they were tight with the King, and they like to get drunk, half sex,

get rowdy, and write ribald rhymes and satires. Oh yeah, I'd be a Merry Gang too. I know. It sounds like a pretty fun life. These guys partied so hard that John and Wilmot himself told his friend, the historian Gilbert Burnett that quote. For five years together, he was continually drunk and not perfectly master of himself, which led him to do many wild and unaccountable things. Rochester, I

love not perfectly master of myself. That's such a great way to put exactly fully in control of the things I was doing. I was telling myself to stop, and I wouldn't now. Rochester described this life in another one of his poems, probably one of my favorites. So let's head on down to poetry Corner once more, and here regime de vive. I rise at eleven, I dine about two, I get drunk before seven, And the next thing I do I send for my whore, when, for fear of a clap, I spend in her hand and I spew

in her lap. Then we quarrel and scold till I fall fast asleep. When the bitch, growing bold to my pocket, does creep. Then slyly she leaves me, and to revenge the affront at once she bereaves me of money and cunt. If by chance, then I wake hothead it and drunk. What a coil do I make for the loss of my punk? I storm and I roar, and I fall in a rage and missing my horn. I blug on my page, then cropsic All morning, I rail at my men, and in bed I lie yawning till eleven again. I'm

sorry that poem is my favorite column. He straight up like, I got this mistress, and she rolled me for my dough and dipped out spending her hand and I spew in her lap with a sport girl she should steal, And I wonder she stole his money and ran. She's like, what what am I would you? I'm here for free, you know I'm not, Oh my god, And then he yells at his friends all night, falls asleep, and then it wakes up and it starts all over. Seriously, it's so good. Oh man, oh the life, you know, but

honestly the light and I love that. At the end of it, King Charles is paying for this, right, He's like, thanks, bro for financing my lifestyle. The list sounds so great. I love it too, because you can tell he sounds a little bored by it even like he's like, it's still kind of like just the same ship every day. Yeah, all right, now, King Charles the Second is known as the playboy King. He had like something like fourteen mistresses. He had a bunch of illegitimate children running around. He

definitely set the tone for this court. There's a reason that he liked men like the Earl of Rochester. It starts at the top exactly, and like one of the first things that he did when he was restored to the monarchy in sixteen sixty was to allow a lot of the stuff that Cromwell and the Puritans had banned, like Christmas, but also theater. And this time Charles legalized acting as a profession for women, which is so funny because we were just talking about that in our William

Dorsey Swan. I didn't know King Charles the Second was the one who did that. But that was cool to find probably sleeping with some girl who was like, hey, buddy, can I get on stage please? I kind of wondered if it was like because so many aristocrats ended up finding their mistresses through opera and theater. I was like, I wonder if King Charles was like, man, you know, if these orange seller girls could be on stage, would be a lot easier to see how pretty they are,

and I can meet them later. So he's just trying to increase his own choice. I don't know, he's like, let me wine the net. I don't know, but Nell Gwinn was one of his favorite mistresses, um and she started as an orange seller at the theater, and I wonder, I just wonder if he's like, I don't see these orange sellers. I'm the king. They don't sell me orange, but I need to be able to look at them put them on stage. I'm sick of looking all these dudes.

A stick of this, which I also like in our version, the reason women are allowed on stage just because men are pigs. I mean, it's like, doesn't exactly empower that, really, doesn't, you know? I don't know whatever, I guess it got me to where I want to be, so, like we said, one of the women to benefit from this new profession was Nell Gwynn, who was Charles the second Mistress. She had a lot of influence with him. But before she hooked up with Charles, she quote more than likely had

a brief fling with John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester. Now, after the passion cooled, they remained pretty close friends, and her influence at court and with Charles really helped Rochester the many many times he was in disgrace with the King. But it was another actress that John Wilmot's name is linked to the most, and that brings us to this

episode side piece. Yea, Elizabeth Barry was an actress, but her first performance at the age of seventeen was so terrible that she was immediately fired from the company she was working for. It Fortunately for her, she met On Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, in sixteen seventy three, and he apparently started training her as an actress. Now, there's no details as to why Rochester was qualified to be an

acting coach. I mean, I mean, you know, he did have a flair for language, right, he didn't have a love for the ladies. Maybe that's all it took. I know some acting coaches now who that's that's pretty much their qualifications. I love the ladies and I can talk good. Learn how to act for me four dollars please. You

got to be careful out there aspiring actors. John Wilmot must have been pretty good at it, though, because eventually Elizabeth became the most famous actress of the Restoration period, and all this despite the fact that she was not known as a beauty by any means. In fact, one anonymous author wrote in a seventeen of two book called a Comparison between the Two Stages that she was quote the ugliest woman in the real world, the finest woman

in the world upon the stage. And Elizabeth Barry was probably like anonymous coward, come here and say to my faith, right, or she was like, yeah, well whatever said beauty subjective. I mean, she definitely had something that John Wilmot liked, because they were together for five years. They even had a daughter together. But has her success grew, John got kind of jealous. Probably she just had like a lot

more demands on her time. She didn't have as much you know, she didn't need him as much as she had before. He's like, I'm I'm making time away from my wife and you can't do the same for your craft. I need to spend in your hat. Hurry up. She's like, you vomited in my lap one too many times. Pal, I don't know. I don't know exactly, but that's what they say. Got a little resentful, and they eventually broke up, and in his poem upon leaving his mistress, Rochester famously wrote, quote,

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. When she retired at fifty two in seventeen ten, she was one of the greatest tragic actresses of her time. She had a career that lasted thirty five years, and although Rochester is known to have had many affairs through his life, hers is kind

of the only name that we can find. Otherwise likely it was like nameless actresses, servants, prostitutes who kind of enjoyed his special ski, his routine, his routine at his regime d VIV seven o'clock, where's my lap? Besides all this, Rochester was always busy getting into trouble. He had been banned from court once before, in sixteen sixty nine, when he punched a playwright in the ear in front of

the King. This was considered a less magest offense, and it didn't take long for him to get welcomed back. But then he messed up again because on Christmas of sixty three, Charles asked for a copy of one of his poems, and by accident, Rochester reached into his little bag and he handed him the wrong one. It was a pretty biting lampoon of the King himself. This wasn't always a problem because once Rochester read this little witticism quote, we have a pretty witty king whose word no man

relies on. He never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. But King Charles supposedly kind of chuckled and said back, quote, that's true for my words on my own, but my actions are those of my ministers. Ah, anybody, pretty good sings rested, everyone laugh, I'm the king, so you know that was That was a quick singer, and Charles took

it in stride. But this time maybe Rochester had gone a little too far, or maybe Charles just couldn't think up a witty response quickly, so he again banished the Earl of Rochester for months. But what was this poem that made the king so angry? Well, let's go back down to the poetry corner, and here just a section from in the Isle of Britain. In the Isle of Britain, long since famous, grown for breeding the best constant Christendom their reigns, And oh long may he reign and thrive

the easiest king and best bred man alive. Forgiveim no ambition moves to get renowned, 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. I can't deny it. Nor are his high desires above his strength. His scepter and prick are of a length, And she may sway the one that plays with the other, and make him

little wiser than his brother, my brother. How he also ended the poem with this little couplet quote all monarchs I hate, and the thrones they sit on From the Hector of France to the Cully of Britain. Hector, by the way, means bully, and he's referring to the son king Cully means cuckold, and the brother is James the second, and people were making fun of him because James the Second had married a commoner and people were like, what

is wrong with you? But he was also always ogling women, like he had no chills, so he would just straight up like get a quick in glass and looked down their shirts, and people said he had bad taste in women. One guy said that his mistresses were given to him by priests as pennant. He thought they were so unattractive, like damn so that you just talking about James and Charles in the same poem. He's like, how daio compare mede my idiot? Bravo wow, And Rochester just straight up

handed him the wrong one. I know. You imagine when he starts reading it, he's like, oh shit, I thought I gave him the one about you know, the jizzing in that girl's hands. I thought he'd love that like that one. Yeah, as soon as Charles like, let me see this at a poem in the Isle of Britain and who no, no, stop actually, so, if I may let me finish, I like it so far. You said

I had a big dick. Wow, whoopsie. Well, Rochester was in disgrace for a while after this, but it wasn't too long before Charles welcomed him back to court again and even appointed him the ranger of Woodbury Park. But of course it was not going to be the last time this guy got into trouble. We'll hear more about

that right after this welcome back everyone. So by February of sixteen seventy four, John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, was bestias with King Charles the Second again, and he managed to hold his position until June of sixteen seventy five, when he and some of the Merry Gang were drunk as usual and they were out in the palace gardens.

There was this sun dial in the gardens. It was considered one of the finest and rarest, most beautiful sun dials in all of England, and it was decorated with a painting of King Charles holding his scepter, which John had so kindly compared to his dick. It is a little fallon, sure, you know the angle and stuff. You know, he's like holding it down by his hips, but it's pointing out straight out. He's like pointing at it, like, hey, lady, well,

Rochester was totally wasted. And he took one look at the sun dial and he said, quote, what dost thou stand there? To fuck time? And then he runs up and he starts wailing on this sun dial until it fell over. Now he takes one look at what he has done. He's like, oh, I've I'm not exactly a master of myself right now, and he thinks, oh my god, Charles is going to hear that this. I'm definitely going to get banished from the quote again, let me save

you the trouble, and he just ran off on his own. However, just like every other time, he was welcome back to court. Eventually, Charles loved this guy. He really did. Daniel peppis the diary guy. He was like, all serious men just hate how much he's willing to forgive this guy. He should really just get rid of him. So John's fine. He's in with the king again until sixteen seventy six. This basic like an annual thing. How He's like, oh, it's been a year. I guess i'd better get banished again.

So he and some friends mary gang guys. Probably they're out late at night, drunk as hell, as per usual, and they started a fight with the night watch. Now, scuffles with the cops were not an uncommon pastime for young aristocrat because you know, the cops can't really do anything to do, you know him, My daddy is exact daddy, Come get me. I'm friends with King child. Yeah, and usually, you know, the worst thing that would happen is they would kind of spend the night in the drunk tank

until someone came along and bailed him out. But this time one of Rochester's friends, Roger Downs, was killed by a pipe thrust from one of the watchman during this fight, and instead of staying by his friend and kind of like owning up to his drunken behavior that had started the fight in the first place, Rochester fled the scene. The King considered this to be super cowardly, totally unacceptable, no man of honor, etcetera, etcetera, and Rochester was again

banished from the court damn well. This time he fled to Tower Hill, just a poor neighborhood in London near the Tower Prison, and he disguised himself as a respectable O B G. Y In named Dr Bendo. Just so great, I guess doctor Gold. He was supposed to be Italian. Oh he was Italian, be over and the way, let's see what's going on down there. The doctor Bendo would

treat women who were dealing with infertility. Now, John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, acting coach extraordinaire and drunken debauch, honorary master's degree from the Party School. None of this allowed him to know a single thing about medical stuff. He's not a doctor. But one thing he did know was how to get a lady pregnant. And the historian Gilbert Burnett notes that his treatments were quote not without success, implying that some of the women did get pregnant, just

not by their husband's. Yikes. The treatments were very crazy. Now, if these husbands were particularly suspicious or jealous of Dr Bendo reading their wives, Rochester simply went into the back and changed out his disguise into Mrs Bendo, an ulder matronly woman. I'm just an order Italian a woman, Mrs Bendo. Nothing to worry about here. Uh. Suddenly all these husbands were just totally fine with Mrs Bendo looking up their wives skirts. No word on if Mrs Bendo was as

successful as doctor Bendo and getting these wives pregnant. But Shirley Rochester gave it the old Waldham College trial. I'm sure what they were alone. He was like, now you know he's taking the wig off or whatever he's wearing, and he's like, now I could get you pregnant. I'm a hot younger man. This is the most modern, this is the newest in modern medicine. It's where I fuck

you trust me. It works most of the time. Then, in sixteen seventy nine, one of Rochester's main rivals was England's very first poet laureate, whose name was John Dryden, and he wrote a poem called an Essay on Satire which contained pointed attacks on Rochester as a notorious womanizer. So that kind of piste him off. And in December of that year Dryden was leaving a popular coffeehouse that was frequented by all the wits of the day and he was set upon by a bunch of dudes with

cudgels who beat him up pretty badly. Now, Dryden offered a reward of fifty pounds, which is worth something like eight thousand pounds today looking about hundred dollars, so nearly ten grand reward just for information about why this happened and who did it and stuff, But no one ever came forward. And some say Rochester is the guy who hired the street thugs to beat him up as a response to this unflattering verse about him. But I have to say I'm not I'm not sure that I, at

least in what we have learned about him. I don't see it myself, do you. It doesn't seem like his style right, because he's so busy, you know, roasting other people. Surely he I don't know. Maybe he was really bad at taking it, but he was really good addition it out well. He just seemed like the kind of guy who was like, I'm just gonna get go drunk and punch you in the nose myself exactly. Yeah, why would

I hire someone? That's just my opinion. I don't think that he did it personally, But some say that he was just too sick by that time to be arranging a beat down on anyone, because by the time he was thirty three years old, the Earl of Rochester was dying now. Either he was afflicted with gnarrhea and or syphilis uh and or he had the ill effects of alcoholism, and or he might have had any disease. Sources don't agree.

They all sound believable. The guy did not treat himself well and his health was failing at a young age. His mother, Anne, who was a Puritan but always for some reason, encouraged her son's excesses, like if you remember, she also helped him plot to kidnap that heiress back when he was seventeen. She decided to take matters into her She decided to take matters into her own hands, and she had Gilbert Burnett come through to John's deathbed.

Gilbert was a good Protestant minister and and hoped that he would save her son's soul in his eleventh hour here. But according to Gilbert himself, Rochester did have a last minute change of heart. He renounced his atheism and his

debaucherous ways, and he requested to convert to Anglicism. But a lot of scholars are kind of skeptical about this because the only account that exists of John converting and all this stuff is in Gilbert Burnette's own right, and Gilbert was later able to come out and say, I converted you know, the Restoration's greatest libertine on his deathbed, and that really enhanced his reputation. He later became the

Bishop of Salisbury. So there's a lot of reason to think that Gilbert might have just kind of made this up.

Who's going to call him on it, right, and the guy's dead, Yeah, you can't check my work, So we don't really know if Rochester did, you know, convert and renounce all his ways at the last minute there, right, which you know, it's interesting to think about because he definitely lived his life like I'm an atheist, I don't believe in, you know, any of this stuff, and he was very much like I don't know, nothing was sacred to him. I guess it's a good way to put it.

But you know, they had a very serious belief in hell, like they truly are like I can feel the flames of hell, you know, licking around my heart. Like they really had a visceral image of what that was. So it is kind of believable that went right faced with death and faced with what you think might be coming next, you would be like Okay, fine, just in case, let

me hedge my bets right right. And I mean even today, there's a lot of people who you know, have a have a you know, nasty personality during the life or something, or they're very greedy, or you know, they spurned a lot of people, and in their final days they might be like, oh my god, what have I done. I've I've regret you know, these certain things about my life I wish I had done differently. Yeah, that's not uncommon. Well.

John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester, died on July and tragically Elizabeth Mallett, Lady Wilmot, died only a year later, and shortly after her, their only son, Charles, died as well. So the Earl of Rochester title when extinct after only two generations. Now. John Wilmot never really collected his poetry together for publication. I don't think you ever had plans to publish it, so a lot of his writing is lost.

His most famous poem remains a satire against reason and mankind, where he railed again like valuing reason and rationality above everything else. Um. But after his death, that was exactly what people did value. During the prim Victorian era, respect for his writing declined even more. Writer Horace Walpole said he was quote a man whom the muses were fond

to inspire but ashamed to avow. And apparently like a lot of his books, if they were available at all, they were wrapped in brown paper and they were put in the topmost shelf, so you had to like be willing to ask for it, and like embarrass yourself is like buying a sex toy or something. But critic William Haslett said, quote his verses cut and sparkle like diamonds. His epigrams were the bitterest, the least labored, and the truest that were ever written. His contempt for everything that

others respect almost amounts to sublimity. Still, all the buttoned up Victorians were not interested in erotic poetry, so it wasn't until the nineteen twenties that John Wilmot's writing enjoyed a little renaissance, thanks to people like Ezra Pound and of course the twenties. We we are we know a lot about the twenties, and they were very st wheeling about sexuality and stuff, so they probably definitely were like, oh hell, yes, this is my manual, I'm waking up

at eleven, I'm getting drunk by seven. Let me send for my whole laugh now. For modern readers, Rochester stands alone mainly because he didn't bother to couch his poems and a bunch of metaphors. Austin Saunders writes in the Spectator quote, his poems make perfectly clear what he's talking about, and he's always more than happy to call a dildo a dildo, or at least senor dilto. Saunders goes on quote. In every case, the explicitness of Rochester's poems creates a

sense that he is talking honestly to us. Their conspicuous refusal to use euphemism or to avoid subject matter generally recognized as obscene implies an unwillingness to abide by convention or to repress instinct. Yeah, he's pointing out like John Dunn wrote about oral sex and you know Chaucer, he wrote a lot of body, but it took nine the sauruses and three different language dictionaries to find out what they were talking about exactly. They found a lot of

ways to quote, you know, beating around the bush. They wouldn't even say beat around the bush, probably not, whereas John Wilmot was like, let's talk about bush. I'd love to talk about that bush I was beating around last night. He actually did. In I think it was a play that he wrote. He wrote the line my prick no more to bald cunt shall resort, Merkins, rub off and often spoil the sport he wants. He wants a bush like he does. He wants to beat around the bush.

I want a bush to beat around. Well. In two thousand four, they did make a movie about this guy's life, starring another controversial fellow, Johnny Depp, and this was called The Libertine, based on a by the same name. We were able to share some of his poems with you here today. Delightful, I think, too funny, but there are more that we really want to get into, like an Imperfect Enjoyment, which is another just raunchy, hilarious piece about

premature ejaculation. So come back for our next episode and we will spew those poems in your laps. Gross, Just make sure you don't bring the kids along, because again, this guy, I mean, if you haven't noticed already, this guy's not exactly a PG author. Or do if you want them to get interested in poetry. That's true because if, right, if we'd read this in high school, I'd probably be

a poet right now. I'm saying like, I'm like, I remember reading John Dunne in one of my English classes, and we had to have so many conversations about his metaphor and all the I don't know, the ways he kind of obscured his meaning and talked about, you know, something in the Bible, which what he really meant was this political thing that was going on at the time, and blah blah blah. They had to really like get

into so much history to understand when he was writing. Yeah, and I'm like, why didn't we start with the oral sex one. I'm telling you you would have my attention the entire semester if we just started there. Maybe that's just me, but I feel like people say about language classes, like teach me the curse words on the first day and then I'm yours for the rest complaints. Yeah, if we could do it all over well, anyway, I hope you all love this episode about John Wilmoke because it

was really fun to learn about hilarious. Thank you all for tuning in for this yeah, you had fun to Thanks again to Barbara for telling us to do his Life as a Store as an episode because I wasn't going to, but I'm glad I looked into him because this is hilarious, amazing, amazing. Please let us know what you thought. Tell us any suggestions you have, because obviously they lead us down some great pads. Reach out to us at dick Romance at gmail dot com right or

we're on Instagram and Twitter. I'm at Dianamite Boom, I'm at Great It's Eli and the show is at ridict Romance. I don't forget to follow us along. Catch some videos on TikTok where we're at Ridiculous Romance, and make sure you go see R R R as soon as you can never stop talking about that movie. We are not steering you wrong. Guys, it's so good. Thank you so much for tuning in. Everybody. We will catch you at the next one. Love you bye, so long. Friends, It's

time to go. Thanks so listening to our show. Tell your friends name is uncle Sandez. To listen to our show, Ridiculous Romance.