Merry Gang

The Merry Gang was a group of aristocrats associated with the court of Charles II of England during the Stuart Restoration of 1660.

The gang was centred on John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, who stated their aim was to restore the idea of masculinity that had prevailed at the time of Henry II (r. 1154–1189).

The gang advocated libertinism, drank copiously, and engaged in acts that outraged public decency, including violence towards women.

Historian Christopher Tilmouth, in his book Passion's Triumph over Reason (2010), named James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth and John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, not as members of the set but instead behaving in a similar manner to it.

[1] Buckhurst in particular enjoyed royal favour: his grandmother had been governess to Charles II and the king rewarded the family with numerous titles and land holdings.

The two men claimed to have killed the tanner by mistake whilst chasing a thief, and were pardoned by Charles II in June.

In 1663, Sedley and Buckhurst appeared naked on the balcony of a pub in Covent Garden, where the former mimed lewd acts, blasphemed, and drank a toast to the king with wine in which he had washed his genitalia.

[7] 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.