THE NEWFOUNDLAND QUARTERLY :: ONLINE EXCLUSIVES
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Online Exclusive for #425 King William was King George's son Readers may recognize the above rhyme as the children's game King William, popular in Newfoundland and throughout North America and the British Isles. As with many such games, adult situations are implied within the text and actions: war, love, courtship, marriage, politics and royalty. This article will look at the game as it was played in Princeton, Bonavista Bay in the 1950s, through the memories, reflections and lived experiences of two sisters; my mother, Louise (Quinton) Osborne and my aunt, Sylvia (Quinton) Ficken. Louise and Sylvia were born just prior to Confederation and grew up in the small outport community (pop. 120). They attended one and two room schoolhouses and did not receive electrical or telephone services in their community until the early 1960s. In Princeton, King William was exclusively a young children's game. Teenagers "were just too old to play with us," Sylvia explained. "If you were in Grade Two you don't expect someone in Grade Ten to play with you." King William was played whenever children gathered, but most often at school break times, with other games such as Here we go Gathering Nuts in May, Green Gravels, Ring Around the Rosie, and skipping games like Red Rosie Apple. Origins and Ancient Wedding Traditions King William exists in multiple published variations throughout the western English-speaking world, and over 200 notations of the rhyme can be found in Memorial University's Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA). Variants of King William predate its first publication in William Wells Newell's 1883 Games and Songs of American Children. Newell believes the origins of the verse refer not to English royalty but to a 1287 incident in Scandinavia, in which a young aristocratic Swedish man took his sweetheart, promised to a Danish nobleman, to Norway. The theme of a returning lover finding his beloved about to marry another is common in folktale and song; often it involves the man identifying his loved one before they are reunited. This is transferred to the game when the child 'King William' must find his sweetheart amongst all the children in the circle. King William was King George's Son / All of royal race he run Who was 'King William'? And was he 'King George's son'? Indeed he was. King William was the son of King George the Third (also known as Mad George) and brother of King George the Fourth. According to my mother Louise, "of royal race he run" refers to William's pure royal bloodlines. She explained that King William, also called the Sailor King, was not expected to gain the throne, but eventually did at the age of 60. And although he did have 10 children with an actress he had no surviving legitimate heirs, so the monarchy was handed to his niece Victoria. His acknowledged marriage to Caroline of Brunswick was a loveless, arranged affair, and Louise believed this was evidenced in the lines "If she's not there to take your part / Choose another with all your heart". Louise noted that William was not the only of George the Third's children to be the subject of a children's rhyme, as his older brother, the Duke of York, was known as an incompetent military man, resulting in the well known: The Grand Old Duke of York he had ten
thousand men Prince William in Newfoundland In 1786, William wrote to his brother George that he would spend the next three years dividing his time between Newfoundland, the West Indies, Nova Scotia and Jamaica. Sent out with his own ship, The Pegasus, a 28 gun frigate, William celebrated his 21st birthday in Placentia in the colony of Newfoundland. He was there for the summer to act as magistrate and preside over the fishery. Reputedly, he was a fair and good magistrate; however, he was harsh on the Roman Catholic population, attempting to stop church construction and banning use of the hall where they conducted mass. Both Aunt Sylvia and Louise thought politics could be an element of the rhyme, noting the lines "And on his breast a star he wore / Pointing to the governor's door." They thought this referred to his naval experience and need to treat the governors respectfully in order that his laws would be enforced. His birthday revelry was the subject of much talk as he became exceptionally inebriated aboard ship and carried on with the crew, who very nearly killed him with their antics. During his time in Newfoundland other gossip started about William’s "carousing", eccentricities and temper. Louise told a tale of William sending a serving girl outside during a storm and then barring her re-entrance, an action leading to her death. Surprisingly, Louise also related a connection with her aunt's husband's family! Apparently her aunt's husband's first wife, who had "gone mad" was rumored to be a descendant of one of William's early escapades. In the Trinity family house there was a sword hanging in the front hall: and I recall a sword hanging in their hallway as you came in thru the front door, they had a large, not exactly a chair, I don't even know what it was called, but it was a seat with a high, high back; it was over six feet high or more. And hanging on that was a very elaborate sword. Although nothing was ever directly stated about the sword, it was implied that it had belonged to King William himself. Unfortunately, this sword and other items disappeared from the house, while it was empty, after a great uncle's death. Louise was convinced that the rhyme is connected to this particular King William, as he was the only William that was also a son of a George, although the game or melody might be related back to an earlier game. Due to the British tendency to satirize their royalty, she believed that the rhyme would have surfaced around his coronation in 1830. Children vs. Adult Kissing Games In Princeton, King William was a young child's game and adults did not play this or similar games. However, just up the coast in Plate Cove and Red Cliff, Bonavista Bay, an adult kissing dance was performed. Also known as the cushion, pillow or chair dance, the kissing dance has been notated both in England and in Newfoundland and filmed by the CBC's Land and Sea with host Dave Quinton (1978). I found two versions of a kissing dance done in Bonavista Bay. At some dances, including Keels and Plate Cove, there was a ring with a central figure and the participants were kissed out until the ring was gone. In Red Cliff there was both an excluding and inclusive version. The inclusive variant was danced as a sort of front loading conga line. The person with the handkerchief would kiss someone; the kissed would then join in front and kiss another. Adults performed this kissing dance during or after the community dances. In Keels and Plate Cove, it was an elimination ring game and the final person left was considered the fool. King William in Adult Life There seems to be a resurgence in interest in the King William game in my family, partly due to the release of the rhyme by the Newfoundland group Bristol's Hope (1997). I have heard Louise and Sylvia sing and reminisce about the rhyme several times in connection to the CD. At a family gathering Sylvia pointed out a copy of her lithograph depicting children playing King William in a garden. This painting is indicative of her style and attention to local subjects and characters. On the back of her framed copy she had penciled the words of the verse, which she checked for me and I wrote down. Sylvia stated that she chose King William as it was "one of the good games, one of the favorites." Evidently others held the same opinion as she stated that, after she had finished the lithograph, strangers: would even phone me and say, 'we used to, ya know, we used to play that,' anybody my age will know what you're talking about if you said 'King William was King George's Son,' so I think it was played widely. Sylivia's lithograph depicts five children in a ring, with a younger child in the center. There is a dog wanting to join, and an adult female watching from a door way. In the background are hills, boats, a stage, men on the wharf and the garden; altogether a pleasant and idealized childhood setting in outport Newfoundland. "King William" and other ring and line games such as "Here we go Gathering Nuts in May", "Green Gravels", "Ring Around the Rosie", and skipping games including "Red Rosie Apple" have also been linked to marriage or fertility rites, or funerals in the case of "Green Gravels". Despite such potentially grave and adult connotations these games provided innocent entertainment for children in outport Newfoundland. Certainly, the parents were likely only concerned that they be played outdoors, as Louise pointed out that when "you have a group of kids going around and round and round, shouting and laughing and singing out loud in a circle… it isn't the sort of thing you can do indoors". Back to Online Exclusives main page. |