The Country Wife

Abstract

William Wycherley was born in the hamlet of Clive, Shropshire around 1640. His father, Daniel, was a country gentleman who became steward to the Marquis of Winchester and gradually built up an estate of some substance for himself. In the mid-1650s Daniel sent his son to France to receive a sound education, untainted by the Puritan chill of intellectual life in Cromwellian England. During the five years he lived in western France, William Wycherley was admitted to the company of high-ranking society ladies, including Mme de Montausier, formerly Mlle de Rambouillet, who was regarded as one of the most fashionable ladies of the French court and a leading exponent of précieux wit. Under her tutelage at Angoulême, Wycherley not only learnt to admire the précieux code, which taught that marriage and wit were incompatible, but also became a Catholic convert.