The good little boy in the corner eating his Christmas pie was not so good and implicates a religious man, who is hung, beheaded, and quartered.

Modern Version

Little Jack Horner sat in the corner

Eating his Christmas pie,

He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum

And said "What a good boy am I!"

Historical Version

Little Jack Horner

Sat in a Corner,

Eating of Christmas Pye

He put in his Thumb,

And pull’d out a Plum,

And [said] what a good Boy was I

Alternate Historical Version (from Namby Pamby)

Now he sings of Jacky Horner

Sitting in the Chimney-corner

Eating of a Christmas-Pie

Putting in his Thumb, Oh fie!!

Putting in, Oh fie! his Thumb

Pulling out, Oh Strange! a Plum.

The Naughty Little Jack Horner

The idea that Jack Horner is a reference to Thomas Horner is, according to the Annotated Mother Goose, a persistent legend. However, even if the account is not true, the fact that Jack was a knave is worth consideration. During the Tudor era (1485-1603), Jack was used as another name for ‘knave.’ The earliest known publication of Little Jack Horner is the inclusion of the rhyme in Henry Carey’s ballad titled “Namby Pamby” in 1720. It is quite possible that the rhyme lasted in an oral form from the Tudor era until it was first published.

The Naughty Thomas Horner

After Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church he began to disband the monasteries and abbeys in England. Ironically, the motivation was not religious; it was economic. The Dissolution allowed the King to acquire all the churches property both lands and precious metals (gold, silver, and lead among them).

By 1539, Glastonbury Cathedral was one of the last strongholds. Richard Whiting was the Abbot at the time and Thomas Horner was his steward. In desperation, Whiting decided to send a Christmas gift to the King. The gift was the deeds to twelve manorial estates baked into a pie. It was common during the Tudor era to go to extremes to hide valuables and therefore the pie charade was not unusual.

Thomas Horner decided to make the most of the situation and opened the pie and removed the deed to the Manor of Mells. His descendents continue to live on the ‘plum’ estate that he plucked from a pie.

Unfortunately, Horner’s crimes do not stop there. When the King had Abbot Whiting tried for treason, Thomas Horner was on the jury that found him guilty. The poor abbot’s punishment was to be hanged, beheaded, and quartered.

Conclusion

Whoever Little Jack Horner may be, it is a fair guess that he was not a very good little boy.

Sources

Baring Gould, William S and Ceil. The Annotated Mother Goose. Bramhall House, 1962.

Christensen, James C. Rhyme and Reasons an Annotated Collection of Mother Goose Rhymes. The Greenwhich Workshop Press, 1997.

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