SEDLEY, Lady Catharine (d.1705)

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0113 MS-SEDLC
Held at	: Royal College of Physicians   Click here to find out how to view this collection at https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/archive-and-historical-library-collections ›
Full title	: SEDLEY, Lady Catharine (d.1705)
Date(s)	: 1686
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 1 volume
Name of creator(s)	: Sedley | Lady | Catharine | d.1705 | wife of Sir Charles Sedley, wit and dramatist

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Catharine Sedley was the daughter of John Savage, Earl of Rivers, and was probably born in the late 1630s, or early 1640s.

She married Sir Charles Sedley, wit, dramatic author, and Member of Parliament for New Romney, on 23 February 1656/7 at St Giles-in-the-Fields. Her husband, favoured at the court of Charles II, gained a reputation as a patron of literature in the Restoration period, and was the Lisideius of the poet John Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668). His lewd, drunken behaviour brought him notoriety which rivaled his literary reputation. There are several references to Sedley's antics in Samuel Pepys's Diary.

Sir Charles and Lady Sedley had one daughter, Catharine, born in 1657. She became the favourite mistress of James, Duke of York, afterwards James II, who created her Countess of Dorchester.

Lady Sedley was eventually locked up in a madhouse, or confined in a convent, many years before she died (Guthrie, 1913, p.12; Boswell, 1929, p.1058). She is thought to have died in 1705.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Lady Catherine Sedley's recipe book, 1686, containing mostly medical recipes with a few culinary recipes. The handwriting appears to change towards the end of the book, however it may also be that it is the same hand only deteriorated.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

Conditions governing access:

Unrestricted

Conditions governing reproduction:

All requests should be referred to the Archivist

Finding aids:

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Presented to the College by Dr Leonard George Guthrie, 1913

Allied Materials

Related material:

There is material relating to Lady Sedley held elsewhere in the College archives, including an article on the receipt book and other 17th century receipt books, by Leonard George Guthrie, 1913 (MS534a), and prescriptions for Lady Sedley amongst prescriptions that are included in a volume containing a treatise on smallpox, author unknown, c.1691 (MS535). As with the possibility that Lady Sedley's recipe book (MS534) may have belonged to Ann Ayscough ('Lady Sedley'), Sir Charles Sedley's common law wife, so might the prescriptions have been written for her (see 3.6.1).

National Register of Archives: Click here to view NRA record

Publication note:

`The Lady Sedley's Receipt Book, 1686, and other Seventeenth-century Receipt Books', Leonard George Guthrie, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1913, Vol. VI, pp.150-169

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Sources: Dictionary of National Biography, Vol.LI, Sidney Lee (ed.) (London, 1897) [DNB, 1897, pp.185-88], entries for Catharine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester (pp.185-87) & Sir Charles Sedley (pp.187-88); `The Lady Sedley's Receipt Book, 1686, and other Seventeenth-century Receipt Books', Leonard George Guthrie, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1913, Vol. VI, pp.150-169; `Correspondence: Lady Sedley's Receipt Book', Eleanore Boswell, Times Literary Supplement, 12 December 1929, p.1058.
Compiled by Katharine Martin

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives, Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
Compiled October 2003