Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [37]
There is above ye door that goes into ye inner chamber a head carved in wood like a Roman head, wch I caused to be made for him yt keeps ye chambers & has charge of ye Wardrobe, as a remembrance of him that has so long & faithfully serv’d. This man Francis Oddy was servant to my father many years & since has served me: my father at his death [1634] . . . did recommend this man Francis Oddy to me having good experiences of his fidelity and diligence & even such I find him hitherto. He serves me in ye way of upholsterer wn there is need to furnish ye Lodging rooms and dress ym up: he serves me for a caterer to buy all manner of provisions for the house, & to keep the wine cellar. He is of a very low stature, his head little, & his hair cut short, his face lean and full or wrinkles, his complection such that yt shows he has endured all wethers: his disposition not suitable wth ye rest of his fellow servants which does either by diligence breed envy, or else through plain dealing Stir up Variance & having a working head [good intelligence] is in continual debate.50
Sir Henry Slingsby also recorded his trouble keeping cooks:
Last Sunday my Cook George Taylor went to be marry’d to a maid of Doctor Wickhams at York, & if she be so head strong as they say she is, he will after find his service here freedom in respect of the bondage he must undergo. This cook hath been the freest from disorder of five several cooks w[hi]ch I have had since I became a housekeeper; some of w[hi]ch hath been w[i]th out all measure disordered [referring to their drunkenness] and for their curiosity in the art of cookery I do not much value.51
The calamitous downside of country-house service, favouritism, is all too vividly illustrated by the story of Florence Fitzpatrick, the young Irish footman who was caught up in the extraordinary downfall of Mervyn Touchet, the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven, when his large household at Fonthill Gifford, in Wiltshire, imploded with intrigue and sexual misconduct.52 The case demonstrates not only how the intimacy of the country-house community could have its dark side (some believe that the earl was the victim of a conspiracy more inspired by property rights than morality) but also how a young man could prosper as the favourite of a rich peer and landowner.
Another servant, Henry Skipwith, a favourite of Lord Castlehaven’s, became involved in a liaison with the earl’s wife, apparently at the earl’s instigation. Whether or not his heir, James, Lord Audley, objected to this, when the earl gave Skipwith some £12,000, Lord Audley was so taken aback that he petitioned the king in the ‘hope to find him a father when my own forsakes me’. Lord Audley may well not have foreseen the drastic outcome of his initial appeal, which led within a few months to his father’s imprisonment, trial and subsequent execution for engaging in sodomy with his footman Florence Fitzpatrick, and assisting in the rape of his wife by another manservant, Giles Broadway. Both menservants were also executed, perhaps reflecting the Privy Council’s fear of the social subversion that these events represented rather than the issue of criminal sexuality.53
On the witness stand, the countess described her husband’s involvement with ‘prostitutes and serving boys’, and claimed that he had encouraged her to have sexual intercourse with his favourites in the household, one of whom was John Anktill. The younger son of a Dorsetshire family who had first arrived as a page to Lord Castlehaven, Anktill worked his way up to become a steward of some of the earl’s estates. In 1621, he was elected as an MP to represent the family interest, which was a common enough occurrence. Without the earl’s permission,