Whipping Boy
Preserved but no longer current.
A boy kept to be whipped when a pnnce deserved chastisement. Mungo Murray stood for Charles I, Barnaby Fitz- patrick for Edward VI (Fuller: Church History, it, 342). When Henry IV of France abjured Protestantism and was received into the Catholic Church in 1595, two ambassadors (D'Ossat and Du Perron, afterwards cardinals) were sent to Rome and knelt in the portico of St. Peter, singing the Miserere.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “Whipping Boy” mean?
A boy kept to be whipped when a pnnce deserved chastisement. Mungo Murray stood for Charles I, Barnaby Fitz- patrick for Edward VI (Fuller: Church History, it, 342). When Henry IV of France abjured Protestantism and was received into the Catholic Church in 1595, two ambassadors (D'Ossat and Du Perron, afterwards cardinals) were sent to Rome and knelt in the portico of St. Peter, singing the Miserere.
Is “Whipping Boy” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.