(Vol. v., p. 468.)
Your correspondent who makes inquiry about Whipping-boys of Princes, I
would refer to a very scarce old play from which I give an extract, and in
which the whipping-boy was _knighted_, _When You see Mee You know Mee_, as
it was played by the High and Mighty Prince of Wales his Servants, by
Samuel Rowley, London, 1632:
"_Prince_ (Ed. VI.). Why, how now, Browne; what's the matter?
_Browne._ Your Grace loyters, and will not plye your booke, and your
tutors have whipt me for it.
_Prince._ Alas, poore Ned! I am sorrie for it. I'll take the more
paines, and entreate my tutors for thee; yet, in troth, the lectures
they read me last night out of Virgil and Ovid I am perfect in, onely I
confesse I am behind in my Greeke authors.
_Will_ (Summers). And for that speech they have declined it uppon his
breech," &c.--Pages 48-53.
He will also find the subject noticed by Sir Walter Scott, _Fortunes of
Nigel_, ch. vi. p. 114. vol. xxvi. of Waverley Novels, Edinburgh, 1833,
8vo.; and also by Burnet in _The History of his own Time_. The latter, in
speaking of Elizabeth, Countess of Dysart, whom he describes as an
_intrigante_, and who afterwards became Duchess of Lauderdale, says her
father, _William Murray_, had been page and _whipping-boy_ to Charles I. We
hear nothing of such office being held by any one in the household of
Prince Henry, the elder brother of Charles I.; nor, if we can believe
Cornwallis and others, can we suppose that "incomparable and heroique"
prince infringed the rules of discipline, in any respect, to justify any
castigation. It does not appear that it was the practice to have such a
_substitute_ in France; for Louis XIV., who was cotemporary with our
Charles I., on one occasion, when he was sensible of his want of education,
exclaimed, "Est-ce qu'il n'y avait point de verges dans mon royaume, pour
me forcer à étudier?" And Mr. Prince (_Parallel History_, 2nd edition in 3
vols. 8vo., London, 1842-3, at p. 262. vol. iii.) states, that George III.,
when Dr. Markham inquired "how his Majesty would wish to have the princes
treated?"--"Like the sons of any private English gentleman," was the
sensible reply; "if they deserve it, let them be flogged: do as you used to
do at Westminster." This is very like the characteristic and judicious
language of the honest monarch.
[Phi].
Richmond.
MR. LAWRENCE has overlooked King Edward's most celebrated whipping-boy,
Barnaby Fitzpatrick (as to whom see Fuller, _Church History_, ed. 1837, ii.
342.; Strype's _Ecclesiastical Memorials_, ii. 287. 331. 460. 503.; Burnet,
_History of the Reformation_, ed. 1841, 456.; Tytler's _Edward VI. and
Queen Mary_, ii. 85.). I confess I do not recollect having before heard
either of Brown or Mungo Murray, and hope MR. LAWRENCE will give
particulars respecting them.
It seems very clear that Henry VI. was chastised _personally_; see a record
cited (from Rymer, x. 399.) in _History of England and France under the
House of Lancaster_, p. 418.