WHIPPING OF PRINCES BY PROXY.
(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.
Φ.
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.
C. H. Cooper.
Cambridge.