There was a Little Guinea Pig ---Nursery Rhyme

I don't know if this one was discussed here, but I thought I'd share it.
Howard


The references in 'There was a little guinea-pig' are believed to
refer to the people in the Plantagenet court of King Richard 111 of
England. To understand the meanings of this Nursery Rhyme we need to
refer to the famous satirical rhyme by Colyngbourne:

"The Cat, the Rat and Lovell our Dog,
Rule all England under a Hog"

The Cat was Sir Thomas Catesby. The Rat was Sir William Ratcliffe of
Ordsall Hall. The Dog was Thomas, Lord Lovell ( Lovell's emblem was a
talbot, a now-extinct breed of hunting hound). The Hog was Richard III
( his emblem was a white boar). The couplet refers to the fact that
this hated trio of men enjoyed enormous power and influence in the
reign of the equally disliked King Richard III. The nursery rhyme
'There was a little guinea-pig' provides an even more obscure
reference to these men.


There was a Little Guinea Pig Nursery Rhyme

There was a little guinea-pig,
Who, being little, was not big;
He always walked upon his feet,
And never fasted when he eat.

When from a place he run away,
He never at the place did stay;
And while he run, as I am told,
He ne'er stood still for young or old.

He often squeaked, and sometimes violent,
And when he squeaked he ne'er was silent.
Though ne'er instructed by a cat,
He knew a mouse was not a rat.

One day, as I am certified,
He took a whim and fairly died;
And as I am told by men of sense,
He never has been living since.

--- In , "Howard Heller"
<howard_heller@m...> wrote:
> I don't know if this one was discussed here, but I thought I'd
share it.
> Howard
>
>
> The references in 'There was a little guinea-pig' are believed to
> refer to the people in the Plantagenet court of King Richard 111 of
> England. To understand the meanings of this Nursery Rhyme we need
to
> refer to the famous satirical rhyme by Colyngbourne:
>
> "The Cat, the Rat and Lovell our Dog,
> Rule all England under a Hog"
>
> The Cat was Sir Thomas Catesby. The Rat was Sir William Ratcliffe of
> Ordsall Hall.

Sir Richard Ratcliffe.


The Dog was Thomas, Lord Lovell ( Lovell's emblem was a
> talbot, a now-extinct breed of hunting hound). The Hog was Richard
III
> ( his emblem was a white boar). The couplet refers to the fact that
> this hated trio of men enjoyed enormous power and influence in the
> reign of the equally disliked King Richard III.

The couplet was, of course, written by William Colyngbourne, who had
a few months earlier lost his job with Richard's mother to Sir
Francis Lovell. It's therefore not possible to infer from it that
these three - who were Richard's right-hand men - were universally
hated other than by the class of southern gentry who had lost their
court perks to Richard's new men.


The nursery rhyme
> 'There was a little guinea-pig' provides an even more obscure
> reference to these men.

Presumably the 'guinea-pig' is supposed to refer to Richard's boar
badge. I'd question whether this could possibly date from Richard's
reign, however, as guinea-pigs are native to the Andes. Although the
guinea-pig in the rhyme died untimely, this seems to have been
unexpectedly of natural causes (as guinea pigs, sadly, are wont to
do), and it's other characteristics - a large appetite and cowardice -
are very guinea-pig-like but not how Richard III was seen even by
his enemies. The only characteristic this guinea-pig seems to have
shared with Richard III is smallness. It may be that in an earlier
version of the rhyme the pig was not a guinea pig, and it does sound
like political satire, but it appears to been written about an
individual with a reputation for good living and running away. The
structure has overtones of 'The Grand Old Duke of York', doesn't it
(and that, of course, was about a much later Duke of York)? It does
have the feel of a composition - 17th or 18th century, perhaps -
rather than a traditional rhyme. Anmyway, that's my feeling about it.

Marie

>
>
> There was a Little Guinea Pig Nursery Rhyme
>
> There was a little guinea-pig,
> Who, being little, was not big;
> He always walked upon his feet,
> And never fasted when he eat.
>
> When from a place he run away,
> He never at the place did stay;
> And while he run, as I am told,
> He ne'er stood still for young or old.
>
> He often squeaked, and sometimes violent,
> And when he squeaked he ne'er was silent.
> Though ne'er instructed by a cat,
> He knew a mouse was not a rat.
>
> One day, as I am certified,
> He took a whim and fairly died;
> And as I am told by men of sense,
> He never has been living since.

--- In , "Howard Heller"
<howard_heller@m...> wrote:
> I don't know if this one was discussed here, but I thought I'd
share it.
> Howard
>
> j
> The references in 'There was a little guinea-pig' are believed to
> refer to the people in the Plantagenet court of King Richard 111 of
> England.

Hmmm....When I read the nursey rhyme I thought of the little guinea
pig who took such liberties as a reference to David Rizzio (Riccio),
Mary, Queen of Scots' Italian secretary who was widely resented and
ultimately murdered.

Katy

> There was a Little Guinea Pig Nursery Rhyme
>
> There was a little guinea-pig,
> Who, being little, was not big;
> He always walked upon his feet,
> And never fasted when he eat.
>
> When from a place he run away,
> He never at the place did stay;
> And while he run, as I am told,
> He ne'er stood still for young or old.
>
> He often squeaked, and sometimes violent,
> And when he squeaked he ne'er was silent.
> Though ne'er instructed by a cat,
> He knew a mouse was not a rat.
>
> One day, as I am certified,
> He took a whim and fairly died;
> And as I am told by men of sense,
> He never has been living since.

On Jul 27, 2005, at 23:22, Howard Heller wrote:

> The couplet refers to the fact that
> this hated trio of men enjoyed enormous power and influence in the
> reign of the equally disliked King Richard III.

Well maybe hated and disliked by Collynebourne and the Tudor
contingent, but not by the general populace, particularly not at the
time it was nailed to the door of St Pauls.
Paul

you're never too old to launch your dreams