A friend recently visited Attingham Park, and emailed me gleefully to describe a notice she’d seen below stairs that listed the rules that the servants were expected to obey.
“Insolence to the upper servants” struck me as an offence full of potential. But, in subsequent emails, I couldn’t work out how a girl would be dealt with for such conduct. The choices appeared to me to be:
- in private – by the butler
- in private – by the housekeeper
- in public, by the butler, in front of the senior servants
- in public, by the butler, in front of the junior servants
- in public, by the butler, in front of all the servants
- by the butler, in front of the gentleman and lady of the house (in exceptional circumstances or for certain girls)
- by the gentleman or lady of the house.
And that’s before one even contemplates the choice of implement (a hand spanking on the bare? the carpet beater? a birch?).
Any thoughts?!
Didn’t your friend copy the rules she saw listed?
Does the master of the house, this being the gentleman mentioned. Spank, his wife, daughter, mother, grandmother, aunt, niece, maid, female cook, and nanny. If he does, that corporal punishment scene, might last about an hour or so, before he is finished warming all these naughty naked rear ends. And I am sure a most pleasureable task indeed.
8. immediately at the scene of crime, with any weapon in the 5 feet radius? 😀
Ordalie – sadly she was in vanilla company!
Lydia – yes, of course: I rather forgot the spontaneous option
I think by the master of the house after the butler has already spanked her over his knee on the bare and the master of the house heard the commotion and wanted to know what happened. So hearing of her crime he has her report to the study after dinner to bend over the desk and taste his riding crop. He also announces during dinner to his family that he will have to be excused after dinner to spank the errant girl.