Sing a Song of Sixpence | Museum of London (2024)

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What's it all about?

As with lots of nursery rhymes, no one is certain what this one is about, but the king in the rhyme could be the famous Tudor monarch Henry VIII. He loved to spend money and famously took lots of land and wealth from the Church, so it's easy to see why he might be the one ‘counting out his money’ in the rhyme.

The queen who is eating delicious bread and honey could be Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and the maid (an old term for an unmarried lady) might be Anne Boleyn, his second wife.

Do you know how many wives Henry VIII had in total?

Try at home!

Take a closer look...

Sing a song of...

Sixpence is another way of writing, or saying, ‘six pennies’. A sixpence is an old coin worth that amount, which was one-fortieth of a pound at the time. In today’s money, it could buy you something worth £13.

This sixpence was made in 1653 at a time when England didn’t have a king! Instead, the country was led by a man called Oliver Cromwell who had the title of 'Lord Protector'.

What differences are there between this coin and a 1p coin today?

Rich and famous

This print of King Henry VIII, who was king of England from 1509 until 1547, is a copy of a painting by a famous artist called Hans Holbein.

In the past, only very wealthy people could afford to have paintings made of themselves.

Can you find any clues in the painting that show how rich Henry VIII was?

Blackbird? No, Blackbeard!

Blackbeard is one of history's most famous pirate captains. Plays have even been written about him! This illustration, showing Mr Cambell in the role of Blackbeard, was sold as a souvenir at a London theatre in 1833.

Some people think 'Sing a Song of Sixpence' is actually a coded message used by pirates, like the infamous Blackbeard, to recruit new crew members.

Have you ever watched or read something about a pirate? What was their name?

Dockers' strike

As with many rhymes, people have often changed the lyrics to reflect the times they live in.

At the Museum of London Docklands, you can hear a version which dockworkers sang in 1889 when they went on strike. It starts with ‘Sing a song of sixpence, Dockers on the strike’.

The banner above is also displayed in the museum. It commemorates dockworkers founding their own trade union, an organisation that stands up for workers' rights. It shows a London 'stevedore' shaking hands with an Australian 'wharfie', representing the financial support Australian dockworkers gave to their London equivalents during the strike of 1889.

Can you make up your own lyrics to the tune of 'Sing a Song of Sixpence'?

Investigate more

Were blackbirds really baked in a pie?

Although the rhyme mentions ‘blackbirds baked in a pie’, no blackbirds would have been harmed in the making of this dish!

In the Tudor period, cooks tried to impress with exciting displays of food – a bit like a food ‘showstopper’. They would have baked the empty pie crust, put the blackbirds inside the cooked crust, and then put the lid on. When the pie was ‘set before’ (put in front of) the king, the blackbirds would fly out in a spectacular display! Afterwards, a real pie would have been brought out to eat.

What does ‘four and twenty’ mean?

We would say this number differently to how it was said in Tudor times. You can work out what it means by replacing ‘and’ with ‘+’ and doing the sum ‘4 + 20’. That equals 24!

Who sent the fantastic pie?

You maybe already know some of this story! While king, Henry VIII desperately wanted to have a son to inherit his throne after he had died. After years went by without his wife Catherine giving birth to a boy, he decided that he needed a new wife to make this happen. But the Pope – the head of the Roman Catholic Church – wouldn't let him have a divorce.

Henry's answer? He made himself the head of a new church, the ‘Church of England’. And while he was at it, he saw the chance to get richer, by taking over hundreds of monasteries, abbeys, nunneries and friaries that were owned by the Catholic Church. This is called the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Could the pie in the rhyme have been a gift to Henry VIII from some of these monks, trying to convince him not to take their riches? Did they hope that making him laugh would impress him? We don’t know for sure, but that’s how one version of the story goes!

What gift would you send to a king or queen to make them smile?

You can find out more about life in Tudor London right here.

Could the rhyme really be about a pirate code?

As today, in the 18th century, piracy (attacking and robbing other ships at sea) was against the law. So, whenever a captain of a pirate ship needed to recruit members into their crew, they would have to use a secret code to encourage people to join them.

Although most people don’t agree, some think that 'Sing a Song of Sixpence' was originally one of these coded messages, sung in pubs in ports across the world by the crew of a notorious pirate called Blackbeard. According to this idea, ‘the king’ wasn’t a king at all, but Blackbeard himself, and ‘the queen’ was his ship, called ‘The Queen Anne’.

What does the code mean?

Blackbeard paid his pirate crew a ‘sixpence’ per day, plus some whisky – an alcoholic drink loved by pirates which is made from a grain called ‘rye’.

What do you think life as a pirate might have been like?

Pirates often tricked passing ships by pretending that their crew were in trouble or their ship had sprung a leak. When the ships sailed in close to help, the pirate crew would jump aboard, dressed in black, to try and steal the ship!

In the coded rhyme, the 'blackbirds' could be Blackbeard’s crewmen dressed in black. They are ‘baked’ (hiding) inside the ‘pie’ (their pirate ship) ready to ‘sing’ (to surprise the other ship’s crew).

Take a look at our other Rhyme in Time called Pop! Goes the Weasel. That rhyme is also written in a code called co*ckney rhyming slang.

Can you create your own code?

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