Another proof of the reality of the culinary executions we mention, as well as of the great share which the people of the Kitchen bore in former times, in supporting the dignity of Kings, is to be found in the description of the manner in which the Knights of the Bath are to be installed, according to the Statutes of the Order. The installed Knight is, on that occasion, to receive admonitions, not only from the Dean of the Order, but also from the Master Cook of the Sovereign, who repairs purposely on that day to Westminster Church; though the place be rather distant from his district. After the different ceremonies of the installation, such as taking the Oath, hearing the exhortation of the Dean, and the like, are over, the installed Knight, invested with the insignia of his dignity, places himself on the one side of the door; the Cook, invested with the insignia of his own, viz. his white linen apron and his chopping-knife, places himself on the other, and addresses the Knight in the following eloquent speech: Sir, you know what great oath you have taken; which if you keep, it will be great honour to you: but if you break it, I shall be compelled, by my office, to hack off your spurs from your heels.
As the punishment that has been described above, is in itself of a grave nature, the particular ceremony with which it is to be inflicted, together with the respective shares allotted in the ceremony to the different Officers of the Royal Kitchen, have been carefully set down in writing. In regard to those flagellations inflicted with a view to avenge any slighter disrespect shewn for the presence or the orders of the Sovereign, as they were corrections of a different, and, we may say, of a more paternal nature, such accuracy has not been used; but there is no doubt that they were performed in the same place in which the punishment above described was to be executed, and by much the same hands; whether they were to be bestowed in the Palaces of English, or of foreign Kings, or of the great personages who were nearly related to them.
In fact, we are positively informed that the abovementioned Reverend Father Jesuit was threatened, and according to others actually served, with a flagellation in the Kitchen. The above Court Buffoon was chastised for his impudence in the same place, and Brantôme expressly says that he was smartly flagellated in the Kitchen (il fut bien fouetté à la Cuisine). Nay, when great Men, who have at all times been fond of aping Kings, have assumed in their own Palaces, or Country Seats, the above power of flagellation, the operation has also been constantly performed in their Kitchens. Of this a number of instances might be produced; but I will content myself with mentioning that which is related in the Tales of the Queen of Navarre (Contes de la Reine de Navarre) of a wanton Friar Capuchin, who frequented the House of a Nobleman in the Country, and who wanted once to persuade a young Chambermaid in it, to wear, by way of mortification, a hair-cloth upon her bare skin, which he himself offered to put upon her: the young Woman mentioned the fact; and the Nobleman who heard of it, grew very angry at the attempt, as he thought, committed by the Friar in his House, and got him to be soundly flagellated in the Kitchen. Nor that I mean, however, to offer this fact to the Reader, as a fact for the truth of which I vouch to him, in the same manner as I have done with respect to the preceding ones; but though the above-quoted Book bears only the title of Tales, yet, as it is undoubtedly an old Book, and has been in so much esteem as to have been supposed to have been written by Queen Margaret, Wife to Henry the Fourth, it is at least to be depended upon with respect to those particular customs and manners it alludes to[69].
That flagellations were, in not very remote times, much in use in the Palaces of the Great, and were served in the Kitchen, are therefore assured facts. With respect to our being so imperfectly informed of the different ceremonies that usually accompanied such corrections, it is owing to different causes; and first, to a kind of carelessness with which, it must be confessed, the affair was commonly transacted. The great Personages who gave orders in that respect, were not sufficiently correct in their manner of giving them; nor did they take sufficient care to confine themselves to any settled forms of words for that purpose: whence it always proved an impossible thing for the Masters of the Ceremonies to collect and set down in writing any thing precise on that head. For here we are to observe, that the Princes who gave such orders, did not give them in their capacity of Trustees of the Executive, Legislative, Military, or Judicial Powers in the Nation. Neither did the Great Men about them, order corrections of the same kind in their own houses, in their capacity of Admirals, Generals, or Knights of the Garter, or of the St. Esprit. The flagellations in question, as hath been above observed, were corrections of quite a paternal kind: they were commonly ordered on a sudden, according as circumstances arose, pro re natâ, without much ceremony or solemnity; and they may extremely well be compared with those boxes on the ears which Queen Elizabeth would sometimes bestow upon her Maids of Honour, or with those marks of attention with which she honoured those who made their appearance in the neighbourhood of her Palaces with high ruffs and long swords, who had them immediately clipped or broken.
When the above great Personages were desirous that a flagellation should be inflicted, a word from them, a gesture, an exclamation, commonly proved sufficient. The numerous Servants who surrounded them, through a zeal that cannot be too much praised, constantly saved them the trouble of expressing themselves more at length on the subject: they quickly laid hold of the person of the culprit; hurried him down into the Kitchen; and without loss of time proceeded to serve the prescribed flagellation, the conduct of which was now intirely left to their discretion: only they took care to regulate their actions upon what they had formerly seen practised on similar occasions, or in cases of a more serious nature: they, for instance, never forgot, when the flagellation was accomplished, to offer the sufferers the abovementioned cup of wine and manchet; nor are we to think that the latter always refused to accept them.
And indeed it is no wonder, to conclude on this subject, that the Kitchen had become the appropriated part of Palaces for serving flagellations. The Kitchen was the place of the general resort of those numerous bodies of Servants, who, in former times, filled the Houses of the Great: it was the place in which they deliberated upon every important occurrence; in which they kept their Archives; and where their General Estates were continually assembled. There Great Men were sure, upon every sudden emergency, to find a sufficient Posse of Servants, ready to do any kind of mischief under the sanction of their Royal or Noble Master, and who were never so pleased as when their assistance was requested to effect a flagellation. When a Reverend Father Jesuit, or some saucy Friar Capuchin, was to be the sufferer, the contentment was, no doubt, much increased; but when the Buffoon himself, who commonly was the most mischievous animal of the whole Crew, was to be flagellated, then indeed we may safely affirm, that an universal joy and uproar prevailed over the whole Royal or Noble mansion.
[68] Corrections of a flagellatory kind continue, in these days, to be looked upon as excellent expedients for insuring good order, in the houses of great people, in Russia, in some districts of Germany, and especially in Poland, where most of the feudal customs that prevailed two or three hundred years ago in other parts of Europe, are still in full force: lower disciplines are, in the latter kingdom, the method commonly employed for mending the manners of Servants of both sexes. A regulation was made, a few years ago, in Poland, as it appeared from the foreign news-papers, with a view to abridge the power assumed by Masters in regard to their Servants.
[69] The French word Cuistre, which is the common word to express a flagellator, in a public School, was the old word for a Cook: whence we may conclude, that, in large public Schools also, the people of the Kitchen were supposed to possess peculiar abilities for performing flagellations.