As for the girls:—
“Then is it pleasure the yonge maides amonge,
To watch by the fier the winter-nights longe;
And in the ashes some playes for to marke,
And cover wardes for fault of other warke;
To taste white shevers, to make prophet-roles;
And, after talke, oft times to fille the boles.”
In the private houses there was a great deal of whipping; gentlemen had their servants whipped in the porter’s lodge; to be whipped was no disgrace, but a natural part of servitude, no more to be deplored than the necessity of death; ladies whipped their maid-servants, their sons and their daughters; when a child had been whipped the rod was tied to her girdle, with what we should perhaps consider an excess of admonition. Children knelt before their parents until bidden to rise. On their knees, too, they asked for their father’s blessing. If we may believe Caxton, who died in 1491, and therefore hardly belongs to the Tudor period, there was a great falling off in the behaviour of children in his own recollection. It is a mark of increasing years to compare things of the present with things of the past to the disparagement of the former.
“I see that the children ben borne within the sayd cyte encrease and prouffyte not like their faders and olders; but for mooste parte, after that they ben comeyn to theyr perfight yeres of discretion and rypnes of age, kno well that theyre faders haue lefte to them grete quantite of goodes, yet scarcely among ten two thrive. O blessed Lord! when I remember this, I am al abashed; I cannot judge the cause; but fayrer ne wyser, ne bet bespeken children in theyre youth ben no wher than ther ben in London; but at ther ful ryping, there is no carnel, ne good word found en, but chaff for the most part.”
As for the boys of the household, they either went to one of the City schools or they were instructed by a tutor at home. Probably the latter was unusual when schools were ready to hand. In country places the tutor was common, and his position was anything but pleasant.