Fleetwood Sheppard (1 January 1634 – 25 August 1698) was an English courtier and writer who was a member of the royal courts of Charles II and William III.
were required to join the Church of England, King Charles intervened and said that Sheppard had a background in civil law (having studied at Gray's Inn) and was "not prepared to take orders, he being a person of much ability" (Ellis 255).
He was introduced to Nell Gwynn and became one of her favourite companions, along with Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst (later Earl of Dorset).
While satirists and gossips (such as Anthony á Wood) said that Sheppard spent his time as "a debauchee and atheist, a grand companion," others suggested that he was a fundamentally honest man who was always interested in a good joke.
Whether he and Dorset got in trouble in Paris for some scandalous behaviour, as Wood suggests, or not, it is true that Sheppard lived a very active life.
[2] Members of the gang asserted the right to behave as they pleased and their antics were intended to draw the attention and amusement of the king.
[4] In 1675, members of the gang, including Buckhurst, Savile, Rochester, and Sheppard, destroyed a valuable pyramidical glass sundial in the Privy Garden of the Palace of Whitehall.
He was also present when Matthew Prior was discovered reading Horace as a tap puller in a bar and sent to school to cultivate his talents.
He did die shortly afterward, but in 1768 a joking Annual Register announced that Sheppard was still alive, in good health, and 120 years old.