Punished on the Grand Tour

As our Twitter followers will have read – @abeljenkins and @adelehaze, if you’d like to add us to your lists – we’ve been fortunate enough to have been upgraded to some truly wonderful suites during our Italian holiday. (Rome: rack rate for the suite, more than €4000 per night. No, I haven’t typed too many 0s in that. Our rooms in a Florentine palace: decorated with beautiful nineteenth-century hand-painted  frescos).

Some 250 or so years ago, such suites would doubtless have been occupied by other English folks on their Grand Tours. We imagined one such, setting out on his trip (for it was usually the sons of the nobility who went touring), taking with him his favourite maid.

Some incident would occur on their journey, whereby the young lass in question would do something* to upset or offend another travelling gentleman. Our hero would promise to deal with the matter severely once they reached Rome the following afternoon.

He’d call the girl into his suite a few hours after their arrival in the Eternal City. He’d praise her first – how well she’d looked after him on their journey, how diligent she’d been. But, he’d continue, her conduct the previous evening had been quite unacceptable: she was to go to the hotel reception, and ask the staff to make up two birch rods, and she should bring them to him just as soon as they were ready.

She’d stand before him some half hour later, tearful and ashamed. She’d listen as he expressed his disappointment; blush as he told her that he knew she’d been whipped by the butler some weeks before their departure for the continent; obey as he told her that he would start by dealing with the fact that she had let him down, and so was to bend over his knee.

He’d bare her, put an arm around her to hold her in place, then he’d spank her oh-so-hard, talking all the time of how he thought she was a good girl, how she’d worked so hard – and why it was therefore such a surprise, such a let-down, that she’d embarrassed him so. She’d sob as he told her how she should have known better.

Once he’d finished this first part of her ordeal, he’d permit her rest on his lap – allowing time for her to compose herself (and for the dread of what was to follow to start to mount). And then it would be time for him to honour his word to the other gentleman, and to punish her for the incident in question.

She’d be instructed to bend over the arm of a chair and to bare her backside. He’d take the first of the birches, and slowly and purposefully administer a dozen fierce cuts. Unlike during the hand spanking, he’d remain silent whilst birching her, allowing the rods to convey his message. And then he’d discard the first bundle in favour of a fresh birch, and add a further still-harder twelve.

Afterwards, she’d stand and he’d hold her tight in his arms; she’d lean against him, crying, and he’d comfort her, gently kissing her forehead to reassure her that all was forgiven. It would, of course, have been quite improper for a gentleman in those days to allow his maid to curl up next to him on his bed and cuddle her until she fell asleep. But they were a long way from home, and nothing improper would take place, so we shall leave them there in each other’s arms…

* I have no idea what heinous offence she could have committed, but wasn’t going to let that get in the way of a good story. Suggestions welcome!