Editing Humpty Dumpty (section)

==Meaning==
The rhyme does not explicitly state that the subject is an egg, possibly because it may have been originally posed as a [[riddle]].{{sfnp|Opie|Opie|1997|pp=213–215}} There are also various theories of an original "Humpty Dumpty". One, advanced by Katherine Elwes Thomas in 1930<ref>E. Commins, ''Lessons from Mother Goose'' (Lack Worth, Fl: Humanics, 1988), {{ISBN|0-89334-110-X}}, p. 23.</ref> and adopted by [[Robert Ripley]],{{sfnp|Opie|Opie|1997|pp=213–215}} posits that Humpty Dumpty is King [[Richard III of England]], depicted as [[hunchbacked]] in Tudor histories and particularly in [[Richard III (play)|Shakespeare's play]], and who was defeated, despite his armies, at [[Battle of Bosworth Field|Bosworth Field]] in 1485.

In 1785, [[Francis Grose]]'s ''Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'' noted that a "Humpty Dumpty" was "a short clumsey{{sic}} person of either sex, also ale boiled with brandy"; no mention was made of the rhyme.<ref name="Grose1785">{{cite book|last=Grose|first=Francis|title=A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RyVKAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA90|year=1785|publisher=S. Hooper|pages=90–}}</ref> The name is also commonly appllied to a person in an insecure position, something that would be difficult to reconstruct once broken, or a short and fat person.<ref>E. Webber and M. Feinsilber, ''Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Allusions'' (Merriam-Webster, 1999), {{ISBN|0-87779-628-9}}, pp. 277–78.</ref>

[[File:Humpty.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.9|Poster advertising the 1868 American pantomime starring George L. Fox]]

Professor [[David Daube]] suggested in ''[[The Oxford Magazine]]'' of 16 February 1956 that Humpty Dumpty was a "tortoise" [[siege engine]], an armored frame, used unsuccessfully to approach the walls of the Parliamentary-held city of [[Gloucester]] in 1643 during the [[Siege of Gloucester]] in the [[English Civil War]]. This was on the basis of a contemporary account of the attack, but without evidence that the rhyme was connected.<ref>"Nursery Rhymes and History", ''[[The Oxford Magazine]]'', vol. 74 (1956), pp. 230–232, 272–274 and 310–312; reprinted in: Calum&nbsp;M.&nbsp;Carmichael, ed., ''Collected Works of David Daube'', vol. 4, "Ethics and Other Writings" (Berkeley, CA: Robbins Collection, 2009), {{ISBN|978-1-882239-15-3}}, pp. 365–366.</ref> The theory was part of an anonymous series of articles on the origin of nursery rhymes and was widely acclaimed in academia,<ref>[[Alan Rodger]]: {{cite web| url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-professor-david-daube-1078397.html|title=Obituary: Professor David Daube.|website=[[Independent.co.uk]] |date=5 March 1999 }} ''[[The Independent]]'', 5 March 1999.</ref> but it was derided by others as "ingenuity for ingenuity's sake" and declared to be a spoof.<ref>[[Iona Opie|I. Opie]], 'Playground rhymes and the oral tradition', in P. Hunt, S. G. Bannister Ray, ''International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature'' (London: Routledge, 2004), {{ISBN|0-203-16812-7}}, p.&nbsp;76.</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor=Iona and Peter Opie|editor-link=Iona and Peter Opie|title=The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes|edition=2nd|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1997|orig-year=1951|isbn=978-0-19-860088-6|page=254|ref={{harvid|Opie|Opie|1997}}}}</ref> The link was nevertheless popularized by a children's opera ''All the King's Men'' by [[Richard Rodney Bennett]], first performed in 1969.<ref>{{cite book |author=C. M. Carmichael |title=Ideas and the Man: remembering David Daube |volume=177 |series=Studien zur europäischen Rechtsgeschichte |location=Frankfurt |publisher=Vittorio Klostermann |year=2004 |isbn=3-465-03363-9 |pages=103–104}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |access-date=18 September 2012 |url=http://www.universaledition.com/Sir-Richard-Rodney-Bennett/composers-and-works/composer/47/work/1081/work_introduction |title=Sir Richard Rodney Bennett: All the King's Men |publisher=Universal Edition }}</ref>

From 1996, the website of the [[Colchester]] tourist board attributed the origin of the rhyme to a cannon recorded as used from the church of St Mary-at-the-Wall by the Royalist defenders in the [[Siege of Colchester|siege of 1648]].<ref name=BSHistorian/> In 1648, Colchester was a walled town with a castle and several churches and was protected by the city wall. The story given was that a large cannon, which the website claimed was colloquially called Humpty Dumpty, was strategically placed on the wall. A shot from a Parliamentary cannon succeeded in damaging the wall beneath Humpty Dumpty, which caused the cannon to tumble to the ground. The Royalists (or Cavaliers, "all the King's men") attempted to raise Humpty Dumpty on to another part of the wall, but the cannon was so heavy that "All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty together again". Author Albert Jack claimed in his 2008 book ''Pop Goes the Weasel: The Secret Meanings of Nursery Rhymes'' that there were two other verses supporting this claim.<ref>A. Jack, ''Pop Goes the Weasel: The Secret Meanings of Nursery Rhymes'' (London: Allen Lane, 2008), {{ISBN|1-84614-144-3}}.</ref> Elsewhere, he claimed to have found them in an "old dusty library, [in] an even older book",<ref>{{Cite web |last=Jack |first=Albert |date=2009-09-30 |title=The Real Story of Humpty Dumpty |url=http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/blogs/real-story-humpty-dumpty-albert-jack |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100227020103/http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/blogs/real-story-humpty-dumpty-albert-jack |archive-date=2010-02-27 |website=Penguin Blog (USA) - Penguin Group (USA)}}</ref> but did not state what the book was or where it was found. It has been pointed out that the two additional verses are not in the style of the seventeenth century or of the existing rhyme, and that they do not fit with the earliest printed versions of the rhyme, which do not mention horses and men.<ref name="BSHistorian">{{Cite web |date=2008-10-11 |title=Putting the "dump" in Humpty Dumpty |url=https://bshistorian.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/putting-the-dump-in-humpty-dumpty/ |access-date=2024-01-13 |website=The BS Historian |language=en}}</ref>