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Royal College of Physicians

SEDLEY, Lady Catharine (d.1705)

IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0113 MS-SEDLC

Held at: Royal College of Physicians

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 AND USE

Language/scripts of material: English

System of arrangement:

Conditions governing access:

Unrestricted

Conditions governing reproduction:

All requests should be referred to the Archivist

Physical characteristics:

Finding aids:

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Accruals:

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).

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

Note:

There is some controversy over whether the Lady Sedley whose recipe book the College holds is Lady Catharine Sedley, wife of Sir Charles Sedley, as Leonard Guthrie propounds. Eleanore Boswell suggests that Lady Catharine Sedley could not have written the recipe book as from 1672 she had `lost her reason'. Boswell believes that the recipe book is more likely to have belonged to Ann Ayscough, Sir Charles Sedley's common law wife with whom he lived after his wife was confined in a convent, and whom Boswell suggests was probably known socially as Lady Sedley.

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