Humpty dumpty is an egg in the nursery rhyme. Always falling down, couldn’t be fixed. Those king’s men and horses couldn’t fix the broken humpty. So who or what was humpty, and when was he falling off the wall?
This rhyme tells us of events nearly 600 years ago, when the English Civil War was raging. A ‘humpty’ was term for a large thing- person, house, object. In the War, the king’s men built siege machines to help storm castles. One such machine was a very large cannon, used to attack Colchester. The rhyme teller mocks the king, his men, the gun, as it was very hard to fix.
The king lost the war, lost his head too.
RHYME & REASON
Edition 2 Mystery and History
Why was a baby in a treetop? Who was Georgie Porgie, the little boy blue, Mary Mary? Little Jack Horner’s family continued to enjoy the plum property he took from those intended for Henry VIII, until the 20th century.
The 26 rhymes in this book show how parliament and king battled over taxation, the authority of kings, religion. Humpty played a part in the Civil War.
Gain an understanding of history from medieval times through to the 1700s through these rhymes and their stories.
Understand how a nursery rhyme we recite today started life as a political comment and was passed down through the years until now we have forgotten the politics.
Parents, grandparents, and teachers will find the origin of these rhymes fascinating.
