Alphabe Thursday ‘Y’ is for Last Week!

I was a bit premature last week with my blog post for which I apologise. So I will will post a ‘Y’  for the Brave Old Duke of York this week instead.

Oh! the brave old Duke of York,

He had ten thousand men;

He march them to the top of the hill,

And marched them down again.

And when they were up, they were up,

And when they were down, they were down,

And when they were only half way up,

They were neither up nor down.

The author, who is unknown was set on giving Frederick Duke of York a bad name.  The hill in question may have been Mount Cassel in Belgium ; but the Duke never went there.  He was associated with the Flanders and Helder campaigns where the countryside is very flat and there are no hills nearby.

It suggested that the jiggle compares with another rhyme ‘the King of France went up a hill with forty thousand men’ and considers that a detractor of the Duke adapted the old song to malign him.’ This was an unkind gesture as it would seem the Brave Old Duke was popular with his troops