The Hearsts were pious High Anglicans and were pleased with Sacheverell, who was "always retiring to his private devotions before he went to school". He was educated at Marlborough Grammar School from 1684 to 1689. He was sent to Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1689, where he was a student until 1701 and a fellow from 1701 to 1713. Joseph Addison, another native of Wiltshire, had entered the same college two years earlier. It was at Sacheverell's instigation that Addison wrote his 'Account of the Greatest English Poets' (1694) and he dedicated it to Sacheverell. Sacheverell took his degree of B.A. on 30 June 1693, and became M.A. on 16 May 1695.