Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [35]
4. That there be a certain number of the Gentlemen appointed to sit at the Steward’s Table, and the like at the Waiter’s Table, and the rest to sit in the Hall at the Long Table.
5. That there be a Clerk to the Kitchen to take care of such Provision as is brought into the House, and to have an especial eye to the several Tables that are kept either above Stairs, or in the Kitchen and other places.
6. That all the Women Servants under the Degree of Chambermaids be certainly known by their names to the Steward, and not altered or changed upon every Occasion without the consent of the Steward, and no Schorers [vagrants?] to be admitted in the house.
7. That the Officers every Friday night bring in their Bills to the Steward whereby he may collect what hath been spent, and what remains weekly in the House.39
The household is still described here as ‘family’, as in the Latin sense in which it was used in the medieval and Tudor periods, meaning everyone in it. Note the emphasis on moral issues, particularly the separate treatment of women, and how discipline was exercised by senior offices with their lord’s consent. Lord Cork took a seemingly inordinate interest in the details of the lives and marriages of his servants, and was evidently proud of the settlements he made on them.40 For example, in 1628 he recorded: ‘My wife’s woman Mrs Mary Evesham was contracted to Mr John Ward of Dublin by my cousin Robert Naylor my chaplain, in the nursery of Lismore, in the presence of myself, my wife, my son, and Mr Whalley, and in the presence of them all I gave her £100 in gold which she presently gave her new betrothed husband.’41 Although he clearly did employ indigenous Irish, his senior servants at Lismore were largely brought over from England.
The Earl of Cork’s many bequests to his servants rewarded the long service of trustworthy individuals who created a secure and dignified oasis around him amid the tumult of early-seventeenth-century politics. During this period of upheaval, his sons (including Robert, who later became a famous scientist) were stranded in Europe on their Grand Tour in the care of their tutor Mr Marcombe, who had been recommended to Lord Cork by Sir Henry Wotton, provost of Eton. They had to cool their heels in Marseilles, waiting for money that was held up by the Munster rising before being able to travel on. An employer placed great trust in such a man.
Lord Cork’s bequests include one of £20 to William Chettle, who ‘waited upon me in my chamber and carried my purse for above 26 year)’, plus ‘a debt of £195 stirling all other my wearing Linnen and Apparell which I shall have at my Death and is not disposed of in my Last Will + Testament’. Bequests of clothing may have been made for their resale value as well as for everyday use. In his will, he asked his son to continue to employ Chettle in this capacity; indeed, he asked his son to maintain all the servants so mentioned. Old Davy Gibbons, the footman messenger, was rewarded for thirty years’ faithful service with a lease of lands, to which Lord Cork added money to stock the farm. There is also evidence of the clothes left to servants, to William Chettle: ‘a new cloak that I had never wore of London Russet lined throughout with black velvet’, to John Eddow, ‘French green satin doublet with points of gold and green’ and to John Narron: ‘a tawny satin doublet’.42 Perhaps they were worn, or perhaps more likely sold for their monetary value.
The many examples of household servants being remembered in employers’ legacies in the seventeenth century are testimony to the two-way traffic of loyalty and interdependence in the aristocratic and gentry household. Such legacies went principally to the senior servants, such as stewards, cooks and butlers, the more intimate and personal attendants, but not exclusively so. In 1675, William Dutton of Sherborne, Gloucestershire, left annuities amounting to £91 a year to twelve of his servants. In 1684,