[2] At the age of eighteen he joined the fleet, to serve in the Second Anglo-Dutch War; on the renewal of hostilities in 1672 he was present at the Battle of Sole Bay, and in the next year received the command of a ship.

In 1680 he was put in charge of an expedition sent to relieve the Garrison of the town of Tangier, which was then under siege by Moulay Ismail ibn Sharif.

[3] In 1682 he was dismissed from the court, apparently for putting himself forward as a suitor for the Princess Anne (who that year was aged 17 while Sheffield was 35 and himself not yet married), but on the accession of King James II, he received a seat in the Privy Council, and was made Lord Chamberlain.

In 1696 he refused in company with other Tory peers to sign an agreement to support William III as their "rightful and lawful king" against Jacobite attempts, and was consequently dismissed from the privy council.

It was often attributed at the time to Dryden, who accordingly suffered a thrashing at the hands of Lord Rochester's bravoes for the reflections it contained upon the earl.

[3] In 1721 Edmund Curll published a pirated edition of his works, and was brought before the bar of the House of Lords for breach of privilege accordingly.

They had three sons of whom Edmund survived, and succeeded him as 2nd Duke of Buckingham (he died unmarried on 30 October 1735, when all his titles became extinct).

Upon the death of his half-brother Edmund, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, Charles inherited the family estates and was the first of the Sheffield baronets.