A FROG he would a-wooing go,
Hey ho! says Rowley,
Whether his mother would let him or no;
With a rowley, powley, gammon and spinach,
Hey ho! says Anthony Rowley.
So off he set with his opera hat,
Hey ho! says Rowley.
And on the road he met with a rat;
With a rowley, powley, gammon and spinach,
Hey ho! says Anthony Rowley.
They came to the door of Mousey’s hall,
Hey ho! says Rowley,
They gave a loud knock, and they gave a loud call;
With a rowley, powley, gammon and spinach,
Hey ho! says Anthony Rowley.
Pray, Mrs Mouse, will you give us some beer?
Hey ho! says Rowley,
For Froggy and I are fond of good cheer;
With a rowley, powley, gammon and spinach,
Hey ho! says Anthony Rowley.
But while they were all a-merry-making,
Hey ho! says Rowley,
A cat and her kittens came tumbling in;
With a rowley, powley, gammon and spinach,
Hey ho! says Anthony Rowley.
The cat she seized the rat by the crown,
Hey ho! says Rowley,
The kittens they pulled the little mouse down;
With a rowley, powley, gammon and spinach,
Hey ho! says Anthony Rowley.
This put Mr Frog in a terrible fright,
Hey ho! says Rowley,
He took up his hat and wished them goodnight;
With a rowley, powley, gammon and spinach,
Hey ho! says Anthony Rowley.
But as Froggy was crossing over a brook,
Hey ho! says Rowley,
A lily-white duck came and gobbled him up;
With a rowley, powley, gammon and spinach,
Hey ho! says Anthony Rowley.
So there was the end of one, two, three,
Hey ho! says Rowley,
The rat, the mouse and the little frog-ee;
With a rowley, powley, gammon and spinach,
Hey ho! says Anthony Rowley.
This is a song that has changed over the centuries to reflect the times. The first known version of it, published in 1549, has been found under the title ‘The Frog Came to the Myl Dur’ in Robert Wedderburn’s Complaynt of Scotland. In 1547, under attack from the English king Henry VIII, the Scottish queen consort, Mary of Guise, turned to her allies in France for assistance. The French obliged and Henri II (of France) then proposed to unite their two countries against the English by marrying his three-year-old son Louis (the frog) to her daughter Princess Mary (Mrs Mouse), the future Queen of Scots. It is this engagement that is thought to be behind the original version of ‘A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go’. The song proved unfortunately prophetic: Louis did not long survive their wedding thirteen years later.
The song re-emerged in England some years later when another example of French wooing caused some concern. This time it was the long courtship between Elizabeth I and the Duke of Anjou in 1579. Despite the twenty-one-year age gap between them, Elizabeth liked the young duke best of all her many suitors, affectionately nicknaming Anjou ‘her frog’ and bestowing many gifts upon him. But there was real alarm among the English people, including most of the queen’s own Privy Council, at how well Mousey was getting on with the French Catholic, and eventually, after much consultation with her advisers, the Queen reluctantly sent her young beau on his way.
But the story behind the version we all know today is rather different. The refrain Hey ho! says Anthony Rowley was added over a century later, while the frog the rhyme refers to is an English rather than a French king: Charles II.
After his father’s defeat at the hands of Cromwell (see As I Was Going by Charing Cross and There Was a Crooked Man), the prince had spent years on the continent at various European courts. By the time of the Restoration in 1660, he cut a raffish, exotic figure in an England starved of colour and frivolity. Cromwell had banned every form of merry-making, from dancing to Christmas, and Charles, determined to enjoy himself as much as possible, cancelled all these new laws. His court soon became notorious for its love of pleasure, while at the forefront of every new craze, from horse racing to high fashion, was the king.
But it was for his wooing that the king was best known. He was called ‘Old Rowley’ by his subjects after his famous stallion of that name – to quote Dennis Wheatley: ‘owing to the obvious similarity of their masculine vigour’. A portion of the Newmarket racecourse is still called the Rowley Mile, after the celebrated animal. Charles openly kept many mistresses: most notably Nell Gwyn, Louise de Kéroualle and Barbara Palmer, the Countess of Castlemaine, although there were many more. He openly acknowledged at least fourteen illegitimate children, by several different mothers, but he had no children with his wife, Catherine of Braganza. It is thought that the two aggressors who wanted to eat Anthony Rowley up were his two favourites: the cat was the very ambitious Castlemaine – her kittens being her five royal bastards – and the lily-white duck Nell Gwyn. In the case of Castlemaine, Charles managed to escape her toils – eventually banishing her from court for her promiscuity and for making too free with the Privy Purse –but it was ‘pretty, witty Nell’ who remained true to him and she ended up with the prize: the love of the king (A lily-white duck came and gobbled him up). On his deathbed in 1685, the king famously begged his brother and successor, James: ‘Do not let poor Nelly starve.’