• John XXI was crushed to death while sleeping when a piece of the papal palace at Viterbo fell on him in 1277.
• Pope Martin IV, immortalized as a glutton in Dante’s Inferno (which he was to an incredible degree), died of indigestion in 1285.
• Alexander VI, the Borgia pope, received a secret message from Caterina Sforza, whom he had imprisoned in Rome. The message was rolled up inside a bamboo cane that had been rubbed with the clothing of a plague victim. They say he died in extreme pain.
RANDOM PAPAL FACTS
• Adrian IV (1154–1159) was the only English pope.
• Boniface VIII (1294–1303) lived in terror of being poisoned. He had a collection of poison-detectors, including a series of “magic knives” that could supposedly detect the presence of poison.
• Pope Leo X was a Medici, the son of the extremely powerful Lorenzo the Magnificent. He was elected pope at age 37 in 1513, even though he’d never even been a priest. He had been a cardinal since he was 13, which made him electable. When the cynical people of Rome heard the news they cried, “Palle! Palle!” Literally, this means “Balls! Balls!” Figuratively, it means “Bulls—t!”
• Before Cardinal Farnese became Pope Paul III in the sixteenth century, they called him “Cardinal Fregnese the Skirt-Chaser”; fregna being the Roman word for the female sex organ. He sired many children, they say, but he only acknowledged three.
• When Napoleon conquered Italy, he forced Pius VI (1775–1799) to take a long march from Siena through Italy and into France. A tavern in Siena commemorates the event; it’s named “La Pisciata del Papa”—“The Pope’s Piss.”
• Pope Pius IX (1846–1878) supposedly had the “evil eye”—the ability to cause harm to others just by looking at them—but didn’t know he had it. When he rode through towns and villages in Italy, parents would hide their children, and no one would dare look him in the eye.
• Angelo Roncalli (the very popular John XXIII) chose his papal name because “John” was his father’s name. There hadn’t been a Pope John in more than 500 years, and in fact, the previous one was an anti-pope. Since anti-popes didn’t count in Vatican City, Roncalli became the (second) Pope John XXIII.
First European child born in the New World: Virginia Dare, 1587.
A NEIGHBOR’S HERBAL TEA
In England in 1775, Dr. William Withering treated an elderly woman for dropsy, a severe swelling of the lower limbs. This would now be diagnosed as caused by congestive heart failure, a condition where the heart pumps so weakly that there is not an adequate circulation of blood. Dr. Withering had nothing to prescribe for the woman and was sure that she would soon die. But a few weeks later he learned that she had recovered from her illness, and that she owed her recovery to a neighbor’s herbal tea! Withering asked for the herbal tea recipe, and the doctor realized that the recipe included an old remedy for dropsy that dated back to the Middle Ages—the foxglove plant. Dr. Withering began to experiment, and his results surprised him. The extracts helped cure the swelling of the lower limbs in patients with dropsy. They stimulated the heart rate and improved circulation. Today, the drug digitalis is widely prescribed for congestive heart failure, and the foxglove plant, along with related plant species, is still the basic source of digitalis.
Oliver Cromwell was hanged and decapitated in 1661; he died in 1658.
MOTHER GOOSED
* * *
Keep her away from the kiddies!
Her rhymes aren’t what they appear to be.
WANTED!! A sweet-faced granny riding on a goose. Armed with rhymes and considered dangerous. Goes by the alias Mother Goose. Fills innocent children’s heads with verses of violence that slander the kings, queens, and religious leaders of previous centuries. Mother Goose contains some rhymes that were never meant for children. Among the innocent counting verses and tips for learning the ABCs are old songs from the taverns and the streets: war songs, romantic ballads, and political satires based on scandals among the ruling classes.
MURDER AND MAYHEM
Inside every Mother Goose book are “sweet” rhymes about broken heads (Jack and Jill), starving dogs (Mother Hubbard), slashers (Three Blind Mice), and babies crashing out of trees (Rock-a-bye-baby). Who was this violent granny goose?
SHE WAS FRENCH?
The first known Mother Goose book was Charles Perrault’s Contes de Ma Mere L’Oye, or Tales of My Mother Goose, published in 1697 in France. Perrault’s book was a collection of fairy tales including Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding Hood.
Mother Goose “rhymes” first appeared in 1765 in England in a book called Mother Goose’s Melody, or Sonnets for the Cradle. The book was published by John Newbery, the same Newbery (one “R” in is his name is correct) that the Newbery Medal, the modern award for the best children’s books, is named for. Around 1785, a pirated edition of the book was reprinted in the United States.
THE GOOSE DEBATE
Though most people know the rhymes, they don’t know that folklorists still debate the origin of Mother Goose’s verses. What did Mother Goose know about crime and death and taxes? Was Jack going up the hill in England or in Scandinavia? Is there a Mother Goose graveyard in Massachusetts? If you think all this arguing is only about some nonsense for kids, take a gander at the history of these rhymes.
Mata Hari was actually a Dutch woman named Margarete Gertrude Zelle.
Little Jack Horner: Turns out that Little Jack wasn’t a very good boy. He was really a bureaucrat who proved that crime does pay.
Little Jack Horner sat in the corner
Eating his Christmas pie.
He stuck in a thumb
And pulled out a plum.
And said, “What a good boy am I.”
Around 1540, Jack Horner was a steward who was sent to deliver deeds of church properties to King Henry VIII. The deeds were hidden inside a Christmas pie to foil highway robbers. According to the legend, one property never made it to the king. Horner stole a deed out of the pie and kept it for himself. This “plum” that Horner pulled from the pie was the deed to the estate of Mells Manor. Horner’s descendants lived on the property for generations. They claimed the verses were false and that Mells Manor was purchased legitimately.
Baa Baa, Black Sheep: This verse can be traced to the Middle Ages. It’s a bitter complaint about an export tax, not about sheep.
Baa baa,
Black Sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes, marry, have I. Three bags full:
One for my master,
One for my dame,
And one for the little boy
That lives in the lane!
The hard-working peasant in this rhyme gave a third of his income to the king, called “my master” and another third to the nobility, sneeringly labeled “my dame.” That left only a third of his income for the “the little boy,” who was the peasant himself.
Ring-Around-the-Rosie: Many sources will tell you that this rhyme is about Black Death in England and Scotland.
Ring-around-the-rosie
Pocket full of posies
Ashes, ashes
We all fall down.
They think that “rosie” refers to the rash that was a symptom of the plague, and interpret the other lines as representing other aspects of the illness, with death at the last line. But this idea has been debunked—for one thing, the rhyme is from a period 450 years after the Black Death. Folklorists now believe that this rhyme came out of the Protestant ban on dancing in the 19th century. In the United States, young people would have “play-parties” with rhymes and games that were basically square dances without the music. “Ring Around the Rosie” was one of these.
In 1893, New Zealand was the first country to let its women vote in national elections.
Georgie Porgie: A rhyme that may have mocked a royal scandal.
Georgie Porgie pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry.
When the boys came out to play,
Georgie Porgie ran away.
When King George IV of England was the Prince of Wales, he was notorious for his drinking, gambling, and womanizing. In 1780, at age 18, “Georgie” had an affair with an actress, a Mrs. Perdita Robinson. This was followed by a relationship with a Lady Melbourne. Soon George’s string of mistresses was legendary. Lots of people believed he was the Georgie Porgie in the rhyme.
Humpty Dumpty: This rhyme is an “eggsellent” example of the controversies surrounding Mother Goose. There is no consensus yet on Humpty’s true identity.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
In 1930, Katherine Thomas’s book, The Real Personages of Mother Goose, explained that Humpty Dumpty was about King Richard III of England. At the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, Richard commanded a hilltop (the wall in the rhyme). In spite of all the efforts of his horses and men, Richard fell from his horse (he’s the Shakespearean character who cried, “My kingdom for a horse!”), and after this “great fall,” was killed.
Other folklorists think Humpty dates back to the English Civil War in 1648, and that Humpty Dumpty refers to King Charles I’s huge cannon mounted on the wall of a church tower. When the wall was blown up, the cannon tumbled to the ground, where it lay, broken and useless; the king’s men couldn’t fix it.
Then there’s the camp that believes Humpty Dumpty was Charles himself. When he lost the war, that was his “great fall.” He was beheaded by his enemies and—obviously—his men couldn’t put him back together. Scholars continue to debate the identity of a sadly scrambled egg.
Woodrow Wilson couldn’t read until he was 9, but became the only president with a Ph.D.
Jack and Jill: Probably the most controversial of all the rhymes: the tiny village of Kilmersdon, England, takes first claim, but others say that the village’s ideas are just plain “cracked.”
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.
Kilmersdon, 200 miles west of London, formed a Jack and Jill committee to renovate the hill where they claim Jack broke his crown in the 15th century. Some say that Jack and Jill went up the hill, not to get water, but to. . .uh, well. . .be alone. Jill supposedly died of a broken heart after she gave birth to their son. Many people living nearby have the last name Gilson (Jill’s son, get it?).
But the Scandinavians cite a myth that dates back to the 13th century. Two children went to steal a bucket of dew from the moon god. The moon captured them, and the images of the children with a bucket suspended between them can be viewed on the surface of a full moon. Some folklorists say that this myth, and not an accident in Kilmersdon, is the origin of the rhyme. In another interpretation, there was never any female Jill and the rhyme mocks Jack and Gill, two boys, who were actually Cardinal Wolsey and Bishop Tarbes, who were hated for trying to raise an unpopular war tax. Other folklorists are sure that Jack and Jill aren’t even human. A “jack and a gill” were liquid measurements, and drinking was taxed by jacks and gills. According to some historians, Charles I (the same Charles who was beheaded) tried to increase taxes by making the actual measurement of jacks and gills smaller while taxing them at the same rate. As explained in Humpty Dumpty, Charles lost his crown. . .and his head.
Hey, Diddle, Diddle: The 17th and 18th centuries had their share of sex and scandal. Nosy Mother Goose put some of those scandals into verse.
Hey diddle, diddle
The cat and fiddle.
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such sport.
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
Queen Elizabeth I may have been known as the Virgin Queen, but according to some interpretations of this rhyme it was an honorary title. In her court, she was known as “the cat,” and some believe that the rhyme refers to the way Elizabeth “diddled” with her lovers. It’s also said that the “little dog” refers to the Earl of Leicester, who was the Queen’s favorite for a time. The dish running away with the spoon may refer to a young couple in her court who married secretly. The marriage, by the way, enraged Elizabeth and she shut the pair up in the Tower of London.
Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir grew up in Milwaukee.
WAS THERE A REAL MOTHER GOOSE?
Even the legend of Mother Goose herself has its controversies.
Old Mother Goose
When she wanted to wander
Would ride through the air,
On a very fine gander.
HUNTING THE GOOSE
Some folklorists trace Mother Goose to an 8th-century French noblewoman, Bertrada II of Loan. Queen Bertrada was the mother of Emperor Charlemagne, who united much of Europe. The empress-mum may have been pigeon-toed, and was apparently known by the unflattering title of Queen Goosefoot. Eight centuries later, a French poem of 1650 includes a line about a “tale from Mother Goose.” By the time Charles Perrault’s Le Conte de Ma Mere L’Oye appeared, the French legend of an old woman who entertained children with fascinating stories was well established.
THE GOOSE MIGRATES
Eventually Mother Goose became well known to American children as a rhyme-reciting granny riding a goose. In Boston, Massachusetts, tourists still flock to the Tremont Street grave of Mistress Elizabeth Foster VerGoose. Tourists are told that this widow entertained her grandchildren with rhymes and that her son-in-law, Thomas Fleet, published the rhymes as Songs for the Nursery or Mother Goose’s Melodies in 1719. But no such book has ever been found. Like many other celebrities, Mother Goose may have had to deal with impostors who took advantage of her celebrity.
Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto was the first woman ever elected to lead an Islamic nation.
BUCCANEER BABES
* * *
If pirating separated the men from the boys, how come the best pirates were women?
If ever there was an old boys’ club it was under the Jolly Roger. Pirating was a man’s world, and most buccaneers wouldn’t let women on board unless they were captives. Some ladies managed to become pirates and beat the men at the plundering game.
ANNE BONNY
Pirate Benjamin: The woman pirate most famous for her fierceness and temper was Anne Bonny. Born Anne O’Malley, she was the heiress to a fortune. She could have lived a spoiled, genteel life as the belle of a Southern plantation, but she threw it all away for a cutlass and a pair of breeches (that’s pants, to you).
Who She Was: She was born in Ireland, the illegitimate daughter of a lawyer and his serving maid. Her father pretended that she was a child of one of his relatives. Eventually he left his wife for Anne’s mother and took the new family to South Carolina. Daddy got rich in America and Anne found herself living a life of luxury. Everything changed when her father made the mistake of objecting to her choice of husband. James Bonny was a seafaring man who was later described as “not worth a groat,” old-fashioned talk for saying he was pretty much worthless. Rather than submit to her father’s wishes, Anne eloped with James to the Bahamas.
From Lady to Pirate: Most stories depict James Bonny as spinelessly unworthy of Anne. Whatever the reason, Anne soon rebelled and left home again, this time with a handsome, free-spending man, a pirate named Calico Jack Rackham.
Where and When She Sailed: Anne and Calico Jack were part of the early eighteenth-century Caribbean piracy boom.
A Legend in Her Time: Anne’s temper and courage were legendary. A man had once tried to rape her, and she “beat him so, that he lay ill of it a considerable time.”
Pirate Fashions: Anne “wore men’s cloaths” into battle, but most other times she wore “women’s cloaths.” Her battle outfit was a man’s jacket, long “trouzers,” a handkerchief tied around her head, a pistol in one hand and a machete in the other.
Anne Sh
ows Her Stuff: In 1720, the British, determined to put an end to piracy in their Caribbean colonies, chased down Calico Jack. When the British boarded the ship, only three pirates stayed on deck and fought. One of them was Anne. The rest of the pirates, including Calico Jack, holed up belowdecks. The British captured Calico Jack and his crew and took them to prison. Just before he was to be hanged, Calico Jack was granted leave to visit Anne in prison. If he hoped for any last-minute tenderness, he was disappointed. Anne told him bluntly that she was sorry, “but if he had fought like a man he need not have been hang’d like a dog.” Anne had proved her mettle in her last days at sea.
Her Last Days: Anne would have swung beside her lover, but she “pleaded her belly,” old-fashioned talk for “I’m pregnant.” She didn’t hang, and there’s no record of what did happen to her. Some say her wealthy father secretly arranged her release. Others are sure that clever, feisty Anne saved herself somehow.
Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman doctor in both the U.S. and the U.K.
MARY READ
Cross-Dresser Extraordinaire: Mary spent a lot of her life impersonating a fighting man. Some historians think she favored women in the romance department, including Anne Bonny. However she spent her shore leave, her biography portrays her as courageous and loyal, a great friend and terrible enemy.
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into History Page 7