Humpty-Dumpty Crookback

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 290, 12 January 1945, Page 9

Humpty-Dumpty Crookback

There can be little doubt, however, that Humpty-Dumpty is Richard IIL, the "Crookback" of Shakespeare’s play and the murderer of the Royal brothers in the tower. The "Humpty-Dumpty" name comes from his twisted back, and it is true that all the King’s horses and all the King’s men could not put together his dead body, slain on Bosworth Field. Although there are many foreign versions of this rhyme, which seems originally to refer merely to the difficulty of standing an egg on its end, any doubt as to the reference to Richard III. is removed when it is noted that some versions of "Humpty-Dumpty" run "There is no doctor in all England Who can make Humpty Dumpty right any more." The Stuarts were the occasion for quite a crop of nursery-rhyme lampoons, "Hark, hark, the dogs do bark!" is undoubtedly ditected against Charles II. or James II., with their court favourites and followers. "Simple Simon" is the Englishman asked with Scots caution by the pie-man, James I., what money is in the English Treasury. There was none when James came to the throne, and the monopolies and titles ie was forced to sell to fill his coffers are the "wares" he proffered. "The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" was the English Parliament, her swarming progeny the English people, and the broth without bread, the Scots King, who was so heartily disliked by the people, but who had been placed over them by Parliament.