Chapter One

 

Living just seemed to be complicated and peculiarly challenging...well, often downright painful for someone as beautiful and well-intended as Lady Amelia. It all started during the otherwise rather stable part of her life, when she enjoyed great rank and privilege as the only child of the Duke of Sussex. Her noble father, Prince Augustus, was the sixth son of King George III. That rather complex monarch created this dukedom in 1801 as a last ditch effort to provide a chance for the black sheep of his vast brood of children to finally make something solid of himself. His Majesty the Prince had a propensity for marrying women who caught his fancy without the officially required consent of his father the King. That was a fickle thing to obtain in and of itself, since the Monarch was prone to fits of madness and had a quite, shall we say, tempestuous temperament. In any case, Amelia's lovely mother, Cecilia, herself the daughter of an Earl, had been wed in secret shortly following the annulment of her husband's earlier marriage. That impulsive union with the equally spectacular beauty, Augusta, daughter of the noble Italian house of Este, had also incurred his Father's wrath and had never been officially sanctioned.

Our heroine was conceived well before the official dissolution of her rather randy father's first go at wedded bliss. Prince Augustus was a man of massive appetites and an extreme appreciation for female beauty. As a man of great standing and power in the world, he felt obliviously entitled to enjoy whoever caught his eye. But woe betide the female, soon summarily dismissed as was his first wife, who caviled even slightly at the handsome nobleman's rather specific requirements. These followed a common pathway for men of libertine inclination and high social standing in his era. The Prince and his dissolute friends fancied themselves to be connoisseurs of what they termed the spicier erotic condiments.

In the case of Augustus and his circle, these included a very specific interest in the female backside. This feature of the feminine anatomy was deemed to be ideally designed by God for just the sorts of enjoyments they all fancied. Why, for what other reason than male pleasure would women be supplied with an enticingly rounded pair of buttocks that were delightfully sensitive and responded most charmingly to intense stimulation? And once a fellow was done inducing these heavenly orbs to dance vigorously in their efforts to avoid or accommodate challenging attention, how delightfully and providentially convenient that between them resided a secret passage where a man could indulge himself endlessly without risk of unwanted progeny? All of Augustus' friends agreed that this logic was inescapable, and that they were only carrying out the Good Lord's intention when their wives and mistresses and concubines were subjected to frequent spankings and sodomizations.

In this era, no one thought twice about the necessity of corporal punishment for crimes of all sorts. From earliest childhood, all misbehaving British subjects were subjected to prompt and painful attention to that very same place that the Prince's coterie insisted was designed for exactly this purpose. Spankings were universally regarded to be salubrious for developing boys and girls, and this widely held opinion persisted regarding grown women of all ages. Husbands were unchallenged lords of their domains, and a wife or servant who crossed them could expect to be punished in whatever manner their Lord and Master deemed fitting.

Well, in the case of the Prince, that manner inevitably included the baring of the miscreant's buttocks and the infliction of a long and painful spanking by the Prince himself. To be sure, he was a believer in the value of immediate consequences for misbehavior, so other household authorities were empowered to administer discipline on the spot, so to say, in his absence. But if Augustus was in residence, then he expected, indeed, demanded, that cases of domestic infraction be brought to his attention and that he be allowed to exercise his droit d' seigneur in delivering the deserved consequences directly.

Since His Highness was solely enamored of the female derriere, males requiring corporal correction were seconded to the Housemistress. She was a severely attractive slender woman of middling years who took great delight in flagellating the bare buttocks of attractive footmen and stable boys. It was rumored that if the subjects of her painful attentions showed the obvious evidence of their arousal by the proceedings, she was happy to avail herself of the organ that told this particular tale, to the enjoyment of all present. But females who misbehaved could count on being spanked by Lady Amelia's father

Interestingly enough, throughout her childhood, the one person of her gender in his household that was spared Augustus' fierce attentions to her nether moons was our heroine. Her father instinctively recognized that subjecting his minor child to attentions that he knew himself to find powerfully sexually arousing crossed a line he intuitively avoided. So When Amelia was disciplined as a child, it was by her nannies or governesses. As a member of a royal household, she was not permitted to be educated in a school setting, always given private tutoring even when the family finances became a bit iffy later in her adolescence. Her beautiful mother seemed far too preoccupied with trying to hold the attention of her notoriously randy husband to pay more than fleetingly benign notice to her sweet only child. Thus, the task of properly spanking the sweet but spirited girl fell to the women hired to care for and educate her.

But in that era, competent nannies and governesses all concurred with the universally held culture-wide view that to spare the rod was to spoil the child. So from earliest memory, Amelia knew that her apparently uncontrollable tendency to question everything, especially authority of any sort, would result in frequent spankings. While she hated having her bottom bared and paddled or switched or whipped with a belt, she accepted the necessity of this and did her best to learn the lessons the well-meaning women who cared for her were trying to teach.

Our heroine was a basically sweetly natured child who was anxious to please those in charge of her. She acquiesced without complaint (except of course, during her actual spankings, when she would cry and squirm like any normal naughty girl) their verdict that her betterment required frequent painful trips over a disapproving grownup's lap. There her buttocks would be bared and belabored until the desired endpoint of proper contrition had been achieved. This almost always meant that Amelia would be spanked until her nether cheeks were glowing a bright red and throbbing terribly with each beat of her racing heart. By the end of each dose she would always be frantic with sobbing repentance for her willful ways.

Likewise, our heroine also had to endure the equally widely believed nostrum that childish dispositions and illnesses could best be managed with careful attention to ensuring proper function of the bowels. Current medical opinion had it that dangerous toxins resided in the contents of these organs, and that peckish young ladies would always benefit from having such contaminants washed away. This meant that Amelia was subject to daily interrogation regarding the contents of her chamber pot. Several times each week these deliberations ended in the decision to administer a clyster in conjunction with her bath. This regimen no doubt further complicated our heroine's relationship to that private part of her anatomy with which so many people in her world seemed entitled to take such liberties.

Amelia was a lonely child, though constantly attended by adults, because of the oddity of her position in the culture of her times. She was of indisputable high rank, being the officially acknowledged offspring of a Prince and Duke, and her mother the daughter of an Earl. But she was conceived while her father was still married to his first wife, so our heroine was technically a bastard regardless of the high station of her birth and her indisputable royal bloodlines. Thus, she could not be welcomed in Court or high society, but was also of too high a rank to attend school with other children. So the sweet, lovely girl made do with her adult companions, engaging her attendants in earnest conversation far beyond her years from an early age.

She excelled at languages, steadily mastering Latin, Greek, French, and the required German (given that she was a scion, albeit illegitimate, of the House of Hanover) in addition to the English of her birth and upbringing. The pianoforte and harpsichord were likewise rapidly conquered, and voice and flute lessons were a part of her daily routine from earliest memory. Her fascination with horses was indulged in a way that probably would not have been permitted if she had not been confined to a country estate. But several hours a day of riding were permitted throughout her childhood, resulting when she came of age in a trim physique with unusually firm well-muscled hips and thighs for a young lady of her times.

One of the other complexities of Amelia's isolated existence came with her growing awareness of some of the complexities of the relationship between her father and mother. The growing daughter accepted the universality of the dominion of husbands over wives, reinforced frequently by the sermons of the somewhat seedy chaplain who came on Sundays each week to minister to the isolated country estate. The Prince faithfully attended these small services in the ornate chapel of the manse when he was on the property. Our heroine noticed that when her Father was present, the chaplain almost always chose a text that emphasized the Master's obligation to provide strict and firm guidance to his household. Augustus would smirk complacently, and her Mother's beautiful features would blush fiercely (as fair-haired women like her were wont to do).

Then after the services the Lord of the Manor would archly allude during the Sunday brunch to his afternoon duties regarding his lady wife, eliciting even more brilliant flushes from the object of his taunts. Once the meal was finished, the Prince would escort his Lady to their chambers. If Amelia made it her business during the rare free time she was allowed on Sunday afternoons, she could wander the manicured grounds to her parents' wing of the mansion. And if her Mother's bedchamber windows were left open as was necessary for proper ventilation on warm afternoons, our heroine would hear the unmistakable sounds of the Lady of the mansion receiving a sound spanking.

These would be followed by some sort of activity that made the usually restrained woman cry out in what sounded like a combination of anguish and pleasure, often several times over the next hour before all was silent and normal decorum was restored. Our heroine's inexhaustible source of household gossip, her diminutive French chambermaid Lisette, explained that her Mistress' mother was indeed subjected to regular spankings always ending in the Prince taking his manly pleasure where he had just labored on behalf of his wife's proper discipline.

Shortly after Amelia turned eighteen years of age in 1830, her life took a rather dramatic turn. Lady Cecilia had not been well for several months, during which learned physicians had been summoned repeatedly to the estate for consultation. But their best efforts fell short, and our heroine was saddened by her Mother's death later that year. Once this happened, her Father seemed to change as well. His customary journeys away from the estate grew longer, and the servants whispered that he was drinking and gambling recklessly during his sojourns in London where he presided over the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences. But more strikingly for Amelia, when the Prince was in residence at the estate, he instituted a new regime regarding household discipline.

Lady Cecilia had never taken an interest in the dispensation of corporal punishment to her daughter or the members of her staff, leaving those duties respectively to the Governess and House Mistress. The Prince informed these worthies that heretofore when he was in residence the disciplining of all female members of his household was to devolve to him. If an infraction was committed, it was to be jotted down in a notebook kept by each of these formidable women, and brought to his attention after supper each evening. Then each household miscreant would be brought before him in his study, where she would be subjected to the punishment he thought appropriate delivered by his own hand.

Errant chambermaids and kitchen staff soon learned to dread these appointments, which always took place with them being bent over his mahogany library table. The House Mistress would tie the sinner's wrists to the sides of the Prince's desk chair on the far side of the table, after which she was commanded to leave the room. He would then lock the door, smiling wickedly at the prospect of sadistic pleasures ahead. Then the voluminous skirts of the era would be raised, pantalets would be lowered, and bare bottoms would be soundly spanked far longer and harder than the House Mistress ever had done. But once the Royally prescribed punishment had been delivered, the Prince would declare his droit du seigneur to take payment for his efforts on behalf of each penitent young woman's betterment. This would be exacted by availing himself of the passage, eased by a pat of butter or scented pomade, between the buttocks he had just scourged. To be sure, some of the recipients of this rather challenging attention learned to enjoy it, but their selfish Master cared not a whit for such niceties. He was going to take what he wanted, and no one in Great Britain would deny him that right.

For the Lady Amelia, the new regime was enacted in a different manner. Most days she seemed to manage to accumulate a series of demerits in her Governess' notebook no matter how hard she tried to be meek and compliant. Her lively spirit just would not permit her to knuckle under to the requirements of female behavior and speech that prevailed in her male-dominated era. And so, most evenings when her Father was not in residence she could count on an interlude in her bedroom where her strict Governess, Mistress Ramundo, would order her to bend over the edge of her counterpane. The chambermaid, Lisette, would be summoned, and made to hold her Mistress' wrists so she could not interfere with the punishment about to be visited upon her rear end. Then the Governess would raise her Lady's skirts and lower her silk pantalets, and deliver the dose of spankings indicated by the number of demerits accumulated.

The instrument of punishment was usually a leather house slipper, which was supple enough to deliver a singing spank when swung as hard as its administrator tended to venture. Rarely, our heroine was intentionally rebellious enough that her bottom would be switched with a three-foot-long birch twig, hurting far worse and leaving marks that lasted for a day. But in either case, once the spanking was complete, all was forgiven and the penitent Lady was allowed to change for her bath.

But in the new ordering of the household, when the Prince was in residence, this all changed. He would be presented with the Governess' notebook after dinner, and his blushing daughter would miserably hear the tale of her misbehaviors read out in front of the parlor maids and footmen. Then she would be ordered to repair to her bedroom where her maid was to assist her to assume the position for her impending chastisement. Her Father had closely queried the severely attractive Mistress Ramundo, an impoverished daughter of Spanish royalty, regarding the manner in which punishments had previously been delivered to his offspring, and took to heart his predecessor's experiences. Hence, the chambermaid was ordered to remain to perform her duties in restraining her Mistress' wrists during her ordeal.

They would wait there in the ominous silence of the bedchamber, the ticking of the clock the only accompaniment to their fearful anticipation as their Lord and Master took his time selecting the implement with which he would deliver his daughter's spanking. It always exceeded in fierceness the relatively benign leather slipper with which Amelia's buttocks had grown used to being punished. Of course, a dedicated sadist like the Prince had a vast array of weapons with which to belabor miscreant behinds. He clearly delighted in using a different one each time he spanked the delightfully firm and womanly buttocks of his only offspring. Over the months after her Mother's death, our heroine's poor bottom flesh was introduced to a large variety of paddles, both leather and wooden, some pierced with many holes to allow air to pass through them so as to deliver a harder spank. Many different straps were plied across her quivering nether moons, along with an equally daunting variety of switches and whips, as well as various wooden rulers and several hardwood hairbrushes and metallic hand mirrors.