FOOTNOTES:
[111] ... Quæ cum recedere vellet, fixis ligno natibus, evelli non potuit, &c.—Itinerarii Cambriæ, Lib. I.
This opinion of Catholic Divines concerning the great power of flagellations to appease the wrath of female Saints, and the content which they have supposed the latter to receive from such ceremonies, after the example of the antient Goddesses, might furnish a new subject of comparison between the Catholic Religion, and that of the ancient Heathens; and if Dr. Middleton had thought of it, he might have added a new article on that head, to his Letter from Rome.
In fact, the Reader may remember the account that has been given in the sixth Chapter of this Book, of the singular ceremonies that were exhibited at Lacedæmon, before the altar of Diana. ( See [p. 79, &c.]) The same was done sometimes before the altar of Juno. Rites of much the same flagellatory kind were practised in the Temple of the Goddess of Syria. And similar ceremonies also used to be performed in honour of the great Goddess, in Egypt. ( See [p. 85, 86].)
So prevalent was become the opinion that Goddesses delighted in seeing such corrections inflicted before their altars, that several of them, among whom was Venus herself, were supposed to be supplied with the necessary implements to inflict them with their own hands, occasionally ([p. 55]). Nay, the Muses themselves had been provided with instruments of the same kind: Lucian, in his Letter or Address “to an ignorant Man who was taking much pains in collecting a Library,” says to him, that the Muses will drive him from Parnassus, with their whips of myrtle. And Bellona, the Goddess of war, has also been armed by Virgil, in the 8th Book of his Æneid, with an enormous whip.
Quem cùm sanguineo sequitur Bellona flagelio.
These notions of the Ancients, concerning the inclination they attributed to Goddesses, for corrections of the kind here alluded to, may be explained in different ways.
In the first place, they perhaps thought it was owing to the greater irascibility of temper of the Sex, which prompts them to give effectual marks of their resentment, when they have good reason to think that no resistance will be attempted. In the second place, they possibly ascribed that inclination they supposed in the female Sex, to their love of justice; which is certainly a very laudable disposition. And, thirdly, they perhaps also considered that propensity of Women, to use instruments which were, in those times, deemed to be characteristic emblems of power, as the effect of that love of dominion with which the Sex has at all times been charged, and the consequence of some ambitious wish they supposed in them, of having the uncontrouled sway of the terrible flagellum.
However, if I am allowed to deliver my opinion concerning the above inclination of the fair Sex, about which the Antients seem to have entertained so great a prepossession, I will say that I think it owing to the second of the causes abovementioned, that is to say, to their laudable love of justice, and at the same time, to the peculiar nature of the Sex, which makes them feel a great reluctance in using any instruments, either of a cruel, or an unwieldly and ungraceful kind, for instance fire-arms or javelins, swords or clubs, but prompts them to employ, when they mean to give effectual tokens of their resentment, instruments suitable to the mercifulness of their tempers, and the elegance of their manners.
Of this love of justice inherent in Women, a singular instance occurs in the Greek History. I mean to speak of the flagellations which Ladies, in Lacedæmon, who had reached a certain age without finding husbands, used to bestow, before the altar of Juno, upon such Men as continued past a certain time of life, to live in an unmarried state. These flagellations the unmarried Lacedæmonian Ladies (no doubt through the long use they had made of them) had at last converted into an express right; and the ceremony was performed every year, during a certain solemnity established for that purpose. Whether they flagellated all the unmarried Men without exception, who came within the words of the regulation on that subject, Historians have neglected to inform us: perhaps they served in that manner only a certain number, in order to shew the right they had of flagellating all the rest.
Nor have Women of modern times less distinguished themselves than the Greek Ladies, by their love of justice, or paid less regard to elegance in their choice of the means they have employed to avenge the insults they may have received.
In fact, we have seen in the present Chapter, that the persons who have raised the fabric of the Catholick Church, or rather Creed, persons who certainly were good observers of the manners of Mankind, have given the same inclination and the same attributes, to their female inhabitants of Paradise, as the Ancients had given to their Goddesses. And conclusions to the same effect may be derived from the works of imagination of a number of respectable modern Authors, who have all given to the Ladies of whom they had occasion to speak, the same elegant dispositions we mention, and made them act, when offended, upon the same principles as the Ladies in Lacedæmon: these works I do not scruple to mention as weighty authorities; for though they may be, as I said, works in appearance of imagination merely, yet it is well known that such great Authors, when they relate any stories, always allude to certain facts of which they have either been eye-witnesses, or received assured information.
And to quote one or two on the subject, we find that the celebrated La Fontaine, in one of his Tales which he has entitled The Pair of Spectacles, makes certain Nuns, who, as they thought, had had a great affront put upon their Monastery, have immediate recourse to the elegant method of revenge here alluded to. The story is as follows.
Several Nuns, in a certain Convent, were found to be in a situation which, though pretty natural for Women to be in, yet was not quite so with Women who were supposed to have constantly lived inclosed in the same walls with other Women, and made the Abbess judiciously conclude that some male Nun was harboured among them, or, as it was expressed, that some wolf lay hidden among the sheep: a suspicion which, by the by, was well grounded; for a young Man, who had as yet no beard, had found means to introduce himself into the Convent, where he lived, dressed like the Sisters, and was reckoned one among them. In order both to ascertain such suspicion, and discover so dangerous a person, all the Nuns were ordered into one room, and there made to strip themselves stark naked; when the Abbess, with her spectacles on her nose (whence the Tale has received its name) inspected them all, one after another, carefully. To relate how the young Man, notwithstanding the ingenious precautions he had taken, came to be found out, and how the Abbess’s spectacles were thrown from her nose and broken, is foreign to our subject: let it here suffice to say that the young Man was really found out; and that the Nuns, except those who had been concerned with him, who were previously locked up in a safe place,—that the Nuns, I say, laid hold of him, led him into a wood that stood close to their Convent, and there tied him to a tree, naked as he was, in order to make him atone for his audaciousness by a smart flagellation. Having forgotten to supply themselves with the necessary instruments of correction, they ran back to the Convent to fetch them, and whether from the mislaying of a key, or some other accident, were detained a little time. In the mean time a Miller, riding upon his Ass, went through the wood; and seeing the young Man in the abovementioned plight, stopped, and asked him the reason of it: to which the latter made answer, that it was those wicked Nuns who had put him in that situation, because he would not gratify their wanton requests; that he had rather die than be guilty of such thing. The Miller then cast upon him a look of the utmost contempt ... but it will be better to refer the Reader to the abovementioned Author himself, for the inimitable Dialogue that passed between the young Man and the Miller: here it will be enough to say, that this latter proposed to the other to put himself in his place, and warranted him he would behave in quite a different manner, and much more to the satisfaction of the Nuns than he had done. The young Man had no need of much encouragement to accept the proposal: after the Miller had released him, and stripped himself, he tied him fast to the same tree, and had just time enough to steal away, and hide himself behind some neighbouring bush, when the Nuns rushed again out of the same door at which they had got in, armed with all the disciplines and besoms they had been able to find in the Convent. They immediately marched up to the person who was tied to the tree, and without minding the broad shoulders and brawny limbs which were now offered to their view, began to use their disciplines with great agility. In vain did the Miller expostulate with them on their using him so ill: in vain did he remonstrate that he was not the Man whom they took him to be; that he was not that beardless stripling, that milk-sop simpleton, with whom they had formerly had to do, that woman-hater who had given them so just a cause of dissatisfaction; that they ought to try him before they entertained so bad an opinion of him:—in vain did he even at last, in the extremity of pain, apply to the utmost powers of his native language, to convey to them the clearest ideas he could, both to those wishes he supposed in them, and of his great abilities to gratify them: the more loudly and clearly he spoke, the more unmercifully they laid on, and only left him when they had worn out their disciplines.
Cervantes likewise, whose authority is equal to that of any Author, and who has moreover thrown a great light upon the subject of flagellations, has introduced a fact which greatly serves to confirm the observations we are discussing here. I mean to speak of what happened in that memorable night in which the Senora Rodriguez paid a visit to the valorous Don Quixote, in his bed. That Gentlewoman having, in the course of the conversation she had with the Knight, dropped several reflections of a very bad kind on the Duchess and the fair Altisidora, who were at that very instant listening at the door, these two Ladies, though justly and greatly offended at the liberty that was thus taken with their character, recurred to no expedient of a coarse and rough kind to avenge the insult; but they immediately applied to the summary, yet smart,—genteel, yet effectual, mode of correction here alluded to, namely, a flagellation. And here the Author we mention has taken an opportunity of giving a singular instance of the readiness of wit of the fair Sex, and of the quickness with which they usually extricate themselves out of the seemingly most perplexing difficulties. The Duchess and Altisidora were entirely destitute of the necessary instruments to inflict the chastisement they had resolved upon; but they had the great presence of mind to think of using their slippers for that purpose: they presently pulled them off their feet; bounced the door open; ran to the Senora Rodriguez; in the twinkling of an eye made her ready for flagellation, and immediately began to exert their new weapons with great dexterity. Thence, still in the dark, they passed to the astonished Knight, who lay snug in his bed, and who, by his listening to the stories of the Senora, and also by his questions, had encouraged her to proceed in her reflections (a thing which he might full as well have avoided doing) and bestowed upon him a few of those favours they had so plentifully heaped upon the above Gentlewoman.
At this place might also be mentioned, as being extremely well in point to the subject we are treating, the kind of satisfaction required by Dulcinea, from Sancho, and that which the Lady introduced by Butler, prescribed to the renowned Hudibras, while he was in the stocks; though, I confess, it might be said that the corrections here alluded to, were only advised, not inflicted, by the above Ladies. But it will suffice to mention, as a conclusion of these quotations from great Authors, the manner in which Lazarillo de Tormes, the notorious Spanish Cheat, was served by his four Wives. Having found out the place of his abode, they immediately agreed among themselves to serve him with the elegant kind of chastisement here mentioned; and having all together surprized him one morning, while he was asleep, they tied him fast to his bed, and served upon him one of the most dreadful flagellations that ever were inflicted, since the use of them has been contrived, as we are told in the History of the Life of the said Lazarillo; a Book which is still in repute in Spain, it being written with humour, and containing true pictures of the manners of that Country, and being even, as some say, founded on real facts.
Nor are true and well-authenticated instances wanting, to confirm the same observations. None, however, can be mentioned, that sets in a stronger light the love of justice inherent in the female Sex, and their constant attention to make choice of expedients of an elegant kind to express their resentment, than the custom that prevails in France and Italy, and perhaps in other Countries, according to which, Ladies use to flagellate their acquaintances, while they are yet in bed, on the morning of the day of the festival of the Innocents; whence this flagellatory custom is called “giving the Innocents” (dar gli Innocenti): the word Innocent, we may observe, has, in both the Italian and French languages, besides the English signification of it, that of fool, or simpleton; hence the words, the Day of the Innocents, seem also to signify in those two languages, the Fools day, or the day of the Unwary.
Nay, so well established is the custom we mention, that Women, in those parts, look upon that day, as a day of general justice and retribution, or an Assize or Sessions day, to which they refer taking satisfaction for the slight offences they may receive in the course of the year, especially from their male friends. They even will sometimes, when the latter hesitate too much in granting their requests, or misbehave in any manner, hint to them the fatal consequences that may ensue from such a conduct, and plainly intimate to them, that a certain day in the year is to come on which every thing is to be atoned for.
When this important day is arrived, those Ladies who have agreed to join together in the same party, or (to continue the comparison drawn from the law that has been above employed) who have agreed to go together upon the circuit, repair early in the morning to the appointed place of rendezvous, for instance the apartment of one of them, sufficiently provided with disciplines from their respective kitchens; and after laying the plan of their operations, they sally out, to take a round to the apartments of their different acquaintances.
The prudent and cautious, on such an important day, take great care to secure well the bolts and locks of their doors; or rather, fearing that sleep should overcome them, and knowing how fatal neglect might prove, they take that precaution on the evening before, when going to bed, and as an additional security, they heap all the chairs and tables against the door. Others, who are of a bold and daring spirit, on the contrary affect on that day, to leave the doors of their rooms wide open, and stay in bed, resolved to wait the event, and undauntedly to face the storm. However, as such an affectation of bravery seems to indicate that some present trick, or at least some future retaliation of some kind or other is intended, the Ladies commonly keep clear from a place they judge so ominous; unless there happens to be one among them of an uncommonly courageous turn of mind, who places herself in the van, encourages the whole party; and they all together rush into the room and fall upon the adventurous Hero, who is then made to pay dearly for his temerity. When this does not happen to be the case, and at the same time they find the doors of all those persons whom they had expressly marked out for chastisement, to be proof against either a coup-de-main or a regular siege, as they must not part without some effectual business has been transacted, the cloud commonly breaks upon some unfortunate Simpleton, who has left his door open for no other reason than because he had forgot what day of the month it was; they lay fast hold of him, and seldom leave him before their disciplines are worn out to the stumps. The story is soon circulated in whispers in the neighbourhood; and if any person who has not yet heard of it, observes that the Gentleman appears that day uncommonly grave and sulky, his wonder presently ceases, when he is told that, on the morning, they have given him the Innocents.
The custom we mention, seems to be of pretty ancient date; it is alluded to in that old Book formerly quoted, The Tales of the Queen of Navarre. A Man, an Upholsterer by trade, as it is said in one of these Tales (for Men will sometimes avail themselves of the practice in question when it may serve their turn) a Man was in love with his servant Maid; and as he did not know how to find an opportunity to escape the vigilance of his Wife, and be alone with her, he pretended, in a conversation he brought about on the subject, on the eve of Innocent’s day, to find much fault with the Maid; complained that she was a lazy Wench, and so on; and added, that, in order to teach her better, he proposed, on the next morning, to give her the Innocents. The Wife greatly applauded his resolution: at break at day, he accordingly rose from his bed, took up a discipline of such a monstrous size, that his Wife’s heart aked to think what correction the Maid was about to undergo, and ran up stairs with a disposition of seemingly very great severity: however, I am happy to inform the Reader, that, after he had bounced the door open, and at first frighted the Maid very much, every thing was concluded in an amicable manner.
If from Ladies of a middling station in life, and in the class of Upholsterers, we turn our eyes towards Ladies of rank, and Court Ladies, we shall meet with instances no less instructive and interesting.
We may, in the first place, mention the case of the Poet Clopinel, which has been alluded to in a former Chapter. This Poet, who was also called John of Mehun (a small Town on the river Loire) lived about the year 1300, under the reign of Philip the Fair, King of France, at whose Court he was well received. He wrote several Books, and among others translated into French the Letters of Abelard to Heloisa: but that of his works which gave him most reputation, was his conclusion of the celebrated Roman de la Rose; a Poem of much the same turn with Ovid’s Art of Love, which had been begun by William de Lorris, and met with prodigious success in those times, and was afterwards imitated by Chaucer. However, Clopinel gave great offence to the whole Sex, by four lines he had inserted in that Poem, the meaning of which is as follows:—“All of you are, will be, or were, either in deed, or intention, wh-res; and whoever would well search into your conduct, wh-res would find you all to be.”
Toutes êtes, serez, ou futes
De fait ou de volonté, putes;
Et qui bien vous chercheroit
Toutes putes vous trouveroit.
The meaning of these verses, if we take from them the coarseness of the expressions, which did not perhaps sound so harsh in those times as they would in our days, did not at bottom differ from the well-known line of Pope,
“—Every Woman is at heart a Rake.”
Yet we do not hear that this Poet suffered any flagellation on that account, from the Court Ladies, or any other Ladies; whether it was that he prudently took care, after writing the above line, to keep for some time out of the way, or that the Ladies felt no resentment at the accusation. With respect to Clopinel, however, the case proved otherwise: and whether his expressions really had, notwithstanding what has been above suggested, much the same coarse meaning as now, or Ladies had, in those days, a nicer sensibility to any thing that might touch their honour, the Ladies at Court were much offended at the harsh charge that was thus brought against the whole Sex without distinction: they resolved to make the insolent Poet properly feel the effects of their resentment: and as they were at the same time firmly determined, especially being Court Ladies, not to use any expedient but of an elegant and refined kind, they resolved upon a flagellation. One day, accordingly, as Clopinel was coming to Court, entirely ignorant of the fate that awaited him, the Ladies, who had previously supplied themselves with proper instruments, laid hold of him, and immediately proceeded to make him ready for correction. No possible assistance could rescue Clopinel from having that chastisement served upon him which he so justly deserved, except his wit; which happily did not fail him in so imminent a danger, and suggested to him to ask leave to speak a few words. The favour was granted him, with express injunction, however, to make his story short: when, after acknowledging the justice of the sentence that had been passed upon him, he requested it, as an act of mercy, that that Lady who thought herself most affronted by his lines, should give the first blow: this request struck the Ladies with so much surprise (owing no doubt to the fear every one of them immediately conceived, of giving an advantage against herself for which she might afterwards repent) that, to use the expression of the Author of Moreri’s Dictionary, from which this fact is extracted, the rods fell from their hands, and Clopinel escaped unpunished.
Court Ladies of more modern times, have given similar instances of refinement and elegance in their method of revenging the affronts they had received. On this occasion the Reader may be reminded of the case of the Marchioness of Tresnel, which has been related at length in a former place. Another instance of the justice of Ladies, still more interesting by far, occurred at the Court of Russia about the year 1740. The object of the Ladies resentment, was a Fop of quality, lately returned from his Travels; nor will the Reader question the propriety of the flagellation that was served upon him, when he shall be informed that this presumptuous Spark had been guilty of no less an offence than having publicly boasted of having received favours which had never been shewn him. The fact is related in a Book intitled, Letters from Russia, which was published by a Lady whose husband resided at that Court in a public capacity, between the years 1730 and 1740: the book is written in a pleasing style, and contains a deal of interesting information concerning the Russian Court at that time. The Author, it is said, lived a few years ago at Windsor: her Letters from Russia were addressed to a female friend in England.
In the eleventh letter, the following account is contained. ‘I long to tell you a story; but your prudery (I beg pardon, your prudence) frightens me: however, I cannot resist; so pop your fan before your face, for I am going to begin. We have here a young fellow of fashion, who has made the tour of France, &c. &c. At his return he fell in company with three or four pretty Women at a friend’s house, where he sung, danced, laughed, was very free with the Ladies, and behaved quite a-la-mode de Paris. As he had given the gazing audience a specimen of his airs, so he did not fail afterwards to brag of the fondness of the Ladies for him, and of the proofs they had given him of it. This he repeated in all companies, till it reached the ears of the husbands, who looked glum in silence; and at last, in plain terms, expressed the cause of their ill-humour.’ To abridge the account, it will suffice to say that the Ladies resolved to punish the vain-boasting fop as he deserved: a letter was written to him by one of them, appointing a place where she was to meet him: “he flew on the wings of love to the rendezvous,” perfumed, we are to suppose, and in his smartest dress. Though he expected to meet only one of the Ladies, he found them all four waiting for him; and instead of that delightful afternoon he had prepared himself to spend, he was entertained with a most serious flagellation. ‘Some say (continues the Author who relates this fact) that the Ladies actually whipped him; others, they ordered their maids to do it: that the punishment was inflicted with so much rigour as to oblige him to keep his bed some time, is certain; but whether the Ladies were executioners or spectators only, is a doubt.’
For my own part, I shall be bolder than the fair Author who gives this account; and I will take upon myself to decide that the Ladies were spectators only. Had this young fellow of fashion we are speaking of, committed an offence of no very grievous kind; had he, for instance, been guilty of some word, or even action, moderately indecent in the presence of the Ladies, or affronted them by some ill-timed jokes, or had he, like Clopinel, indulged himself in a bon-mot, or even a whole song, against the honour of the Sex, then we might suppose the Ladies arms, to have possessed sufficient vigour to have served him with a correction proportioned to the degree of his guilt. Not that I consider, however, as some Readers will perhaps do, the falsehood of the facts he had boasted of, as being any aggravation of his offence: very far from it: it is when such facts are true, that the boasting of them is really a fault of a black nature: it is such, in my humble opinion, that no possible flagellation can atone for it; the ungrateful Tell-tale ought to be stitched in a bag, and thrown into the river. However, as the vain speeches of the young fellow were in themselves highly wicked, we are to suppose that the Ladies trusted the care of chastising him to more robustious hands than their own; and we must side with that part of the Public, who thought that they ordered their Maids to perform for them; that is to say, a set of Maid slaves selected among the stoutest of those who composed their housholds, Maids imported from the banks of the Palus-meotis, or the Black Sea, and who thought it a glorious opportunity for shewing their mistresses their zeal in serving them. This supposition agrees extremely well with the ensuing part of the account, viz. that this vain-boasting Coxcomb was obliged to keep his bed some time: who knows? perhaps five or six weeks.
The only personal share, we are to think, the Ladies took in the affair, was, when the execution was concluded, to admonish the culprit as to his future conduct. Milton makes the observation, which is quoted by the Author of the Spectator, that the Devil seemed once to be sensible of shame; it was when he received a censure (unexpected for him, we may suppose) from a young Angel of remarkable beauty. In like manner, what must have been the shame of that young Coxcomb, who perhaps had never blushed in his life, when he heard himself addressed by the Ladies who had caused him to be served with so just a chastisement! what must have been his remorse for his naughty behaviour! his grief in considering, that, had he perhaps waited patiently a little time longer, they would have willingly honoured him with their most valuable favours! The Lady who possessed the easiest and most elegant delivery, advanced towards him a few steps; and, accompanying her short speech with the action of an arm of an exquisite form and hand as white as snow, and with a frown on her face, which, without lessening its beauty, gave a true expression of her just resentment, she made him sensible, in few words, of the greatness of his fault, and the justice of the chastisement that had been administered to him: then turning towards the Calmouk and Tartarian Maids who had so well executed her former orders, she directed them to shew him the way to the street door.
To these instances of the justice of Ladies, we may add those of the corrections they have bestowed upon their husbands; as they have an undoubted right. A very remarkable case of that sort is alluded to, in the I. Canto P. II. of Hudibras.
Did not a certain Lady whip
Of late her husband’s own Lordship?
And, though a Grandee of the House,
Clawed him with fundamental blows.
Tied him stark-naked to a bed-post,
And firked his hide, as if sh’ had rid post;
And after, in the Sessions Court,
Where whipping’s judged, had honour for’t.
The noble person here mentioned, was Lord Munson: similar acts of authority on their husbands, were performed, about the same time, by Sir William Waller’s Lady, Mrs. May, and Sir Henry Mildmay’s Lady. From these instances we find, that, amidst the general wreck of the Monarchical, Aristocratical, and Clerical, powers in the Nation, and while the King, Lords, and High Clergy, had their prerogatives wrested from them and annihilated, Wives knew how to assert their jurisdiction over their Husbands, and preserve their just authority. The subject however is too deep to be discussed at large here: I intend to offer more facts to the Public in a separate Work, which will be a compleat Treatise, and a kind of Matrimonial Code in which the true principles shall be laid concerning the rights of Wives, and the submission of Husbands[112].
Those Authors who have treated of the manner in which Men ought to behave in their intercourse with the fair Sex, have been so sensible that the latter must unavoidably, at one time or other, have occasion to bestow lectures and corrections on their Suitors or Lovers (and also their Husbands) that they have made it a point to these, to bear those momentary mortifications with patience and humility, and not to think that such submission reflects any dishonour upon them. This is the precept expressly given by Ovid, in his Art of Love;—‘Do not think it in any degree shameful for you, to submit to the harsh words, and the blows, of the young Woman you court.’
Nec maledicta puta, nec verbera ferre puellæ
Turpe——
And indeed we find that those Lovers who have best understood their business, have not only constantly followed the advice of Ovid, and chearfully submitted to receive such corrections as their Mistresses were pleased to impose upon them; but when they have happened to have been involuntarily guilty of offences of a somewhat grievous kind, they have done more; they have, of themselves, offered freely to submit to them. Thus Polyenos, in the Satyr of Petronius, who had been guilty with Circe of one of those faults which Ladies so difficultly prevail upon themselves to forgive, who had in short committed that offence which the abovementioned Miller boasted he never happened to be guilty of, wrote afterwards to her,—“If you want to kill me, I will come to you with an iron weapon; or if you are satisfied with stripes, I run naked to my Mistress.” (Polyaenos Circæ salutem.... Sive occidere placet, cum ferro venio; sive verberibus contenta es, curro nudus ad dominam. Id tantum memento, non me, sed instrumenta, peccasse, &c. Cap. 130.)
The illustrious Count of Guiche, as we find in the Count of Buffi’s Amorous History of Gauls, a Book which caused the disgrace of its Author, on account of the liberties he had taken in it with the character of King Lewis the Fourteenth, and his Mistress, Madame de la Valiere, the Count of Guiche, I say, one of the first-rate Beaux of the Court of the King just mentioned, behaved in the same manner that Polyenos had done. Having committed a fault with the well-known Countess of Olonne, of the same kind with that of Polyenos, he wrote the next day to the Countess in much the same terms as the latter had done to Circe. ‘If you want me to die, I will bring you my sword; if you think I only deserve to be flagellated, I will come to you in my shirt.’ (Si vous voulez ma mort, j’irai vous porter mon épée; si vous jugez que je ne mérite que le fouët, j’irai vous trouver en chemise.)
The celebrated Earl of Essex, in one of the misunderstandings between him, and Queen Elizabeth, having given her a more than common cause of offence, and wishing in a particular manner to soothe her resentment, wrote to her in much the same terms as those abovementioned. He gave the Queen, as we find in Camden, explicit thanks for the corrections she had inflicted upon him, and kissed (to use his words, as recited by the above Author) and ‘kissed her Majesty’s Royal Hand, and the rod which had chastised him.’ Not that I propose, however, by quoting the above expressions of the Earl, positively to affirm that they were meant to allude to any express corrections of the kind mentioned in this Book, which his Royal Mistress had at any time used to inflict upon him, or the other persons in her service; but yet, when we, on the one hand, attend to the invariable corruption, profligacy, shamelessness, wickedness, and perverseness of Ministers, ever since the beginning of the world, and on the other, consider to what degree those employed by the Princess we speak of, proved just, and zealous for the public good, we cannot help thinking that that great and magnanimous Queen had found out some very peculiar method of rendering them such[113].
[112] The abovementioned Lord Munson had sat as one of the Judges at the King’s Trial: he lived at St. Edmundsbury, when his Wife, with the assistance of her Maids, served him with a flagellation. An allusion to the same fact is also made in a song which is to be found in the Collection of Loyal Songs. The thanks her Ladyship received from the Sessions Court, were owing to its being generally suspected the Noble Lord had altered his political principles; for which his Wife had chastised him.
It really seems that a kind of flagellating fanaticism had taken place, in those days, in this Country, similar in many respects to that which arose in the times of Cardinal Damian and Dominic the Cuirassed: there was this difference however, that it had for its object to flagellate, not one’s-self, but others; which was the wiser folly of the two. The thanks publicly decreed to Lady Munson (not to mention several puritanical publications of those days) are proofs of that flagellating spirit we mention; as well as the correction inflicted by Zachary Crofton upon his servant maid (see [p. 238]), and the pamphlet he wrote in defence of it; which was very likely grounded on certain religious tenets concerning the mortification of the flesh, &c. that were current in those times.
[113] It came out, in a certain late debate in the House of Commons (June 1783) that, among the expences in the office of a prime Minister, about a year before out of place, there was an article (introduced among the Stationary ware) of three hundred and forty pounds for whip-cord, for one year. It is very probably since the days of Queen Elizabeth, that this kind of commodity has been made part of the national expenditure.