As I was going by Charing Cross
Nursery rhyme about King Charles I's statue at Charing Cross.
This English nursery rhyme, sometimes called "As I was going to Charing Cross," was first written down in the 1840s. Its roots may stretch back to seventeenth-century street cries and verses. The rhyme mentions the horse statue of King Charles I at Charing Cross in London. It might hint at his death or serve as a puritan joke about royalist sorrow after his execution. It carries the Roud Folk Song Index number 20564.
Quick Facts
- Published
- 1840s
- Writer
- Traditional (Unknown)
Facts from the source article.
Origin
The rhyme is thought to refer to the equestrian statue of Charles I, erected after the Restoration in 1660 and moved in 1675 to the site of the old Charing Cross. The tarnished bronze statue is largely dark, but the "black" may refer to the king's hair colour. The last line may refer to the crowd's reaction at his beheading or be a puritan satire on royalist reactions. The rhyme may have been produced from existing couplets; a traditional London street cry and a note of a ballad in a seventeenth-century manuscript at Oxford contain related lines. The first part was printed as a children's rhyme in a variation of "Ride a Cock Horse" in Pretty Tales (1808). The modern version, possibly combining elements of that rhyme with a reference to the execution, was first collected and printed by James Orchard Halliwell in the 1840s.
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