Born at Ditchley in Oxfordshire to a Cavalier hero and a deeply religious Puritan mother, Wilmot was a member of the court surrounding Charles II. He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, and went on a Europea tour before returning to court in late 1664. When he was 18 he abducted the heiress Elisabet Malet to whom he was married some eighteen months later and with whom he had four children.

He fought with conspicuous gallantry at sea against the Dutch, but chiefly he was a leading member of the group of "court wits" surrounding Charles II. He wrote graceful lyrics and A Satire Against Mankind that rivals Swift. He was a patron to John Dryden and is remembered for his wit and sexual frankness. He wrote also The Maimed Debauchee, which recalls his ménage à trois with his mistress and a page boy.

He wrote scurrilous lampoons, dramatic prologues and epilogues, "imitations" and translations of classical authors, and several brilliant poems such as his grimly funny Upon Nothing. Rochester is famous for having, in Johnson's words, "blazed out his youth and healt in lavish voluptuousness". In his early thirties he became wery ill, and died when he was only thirty-three year-old. He was exiled from the court by the king in a number of occasion for his libellous poetry.

He wrote,

"I storm and I roar,
and I fall in a rage,
and missing my Whore,
I bugger my Page."