It has been attached to at least three different dukes over six hundred years, and Flanders has no hills
The Duke of York in Fitzrovia holds a 4.3 from five hundred and fifty-six people, charges ten to twenty pounds, and it is the second Duke of York in this survey.
And the nursery rhyme about him is a reusable insult.
The rhyme
He had ten thousand men. He marched them up to the top of a hill, and he marched them down again.
It is sung to small children as harmless silliness.
And it is a character assassination.
Who it is supposed to be
Prince Frederick, Duke of York – second son of George III – who commanded the British army in Flanders in 1793 and 1794.
And the campaign went badly. It was muddy, indecisive, and it ended in retreat, and he was recalled and mocked mercilessly in the press.
Except it is probably not about him
Which is the Prat’s usual finding.
Because the rhyme, in earlier forms, appears attached to other dukes entirely – to Richard, Duke of York, at Wakefield in 1460, and to the Duke of Buckingham.
It is an old satirical shape, and the name in it has been swapped repeatedly, to whoever was currently unpopular.
It is a template. You fill in the duke.
And Flanders has no hills
Which is the detail that finishes it.
Flanders is famously flat. It is one of the flattest places in Europe.
There is no hill worth marching ten thousand men up and down, and the Prat rather enjoys the fact that the most famous hill in English nursery rhyme is in a country that does not have one.
And he was actually rather good
Which is the part nobody knows.
Because after the Flanders disaster, Frederick was made Commander-in-Chief – and he turned out to be an administrator of real ability.
He reformed officer training. He founded the Royal Military College, which became Sandhurst. He attacked the practice of buying commissions. He improved the conditions of ordinary soldiers.
The army that beat Napoleon was, in very substantial part, the army he had rebuilt.
And he is remembered for walking up a hill that does not exist.
Eight postcodes and a thousand and one hundred and five articles.
The tellable version wins – and it wins so completely that the man’s actual achievement has been erased by a joke about geography.
Verdict
Good pub, cheap, honest number.
Go, and raise one to a man who was better at his job than at his reputation.
And the column
Which is his, and which almost nobody knows is his.
Because there is an enormous column at the bottom of Waterloo Place, off the Mall, with a statue on top – and it is the Duke of York Column, and it is very nearly as tall as Nelson’s.
And it was paid for by docking every soldier in the British Army one day’s pay.
Which was not, by all accounts, entirely voluntary.
And the popular joke at the time was that he had been put up there to escape his creditors, because he died owing an enormous amount of money.
A man who reformed the army, and who was mocked in a nursery rhyme, standing on a column the army paid for, above the debts he could not.
Paige Shiver has established herself as a cornerstone of modern British satire through her work at Prat.UK, where she serves as a lead political commentator and cultural critic. With over a decade of experience in investigative journalism and comedy writing, Shiver specializes in deconstructing the absurdities of Westminster and the nuances of the UK’s social landscape.
Her expertise is rooted in a deep understanding of British policy, allowing her to deliver biting critiques that are as factually grounded as they are humorous. Shiver’s commitment to the high art of satire and UK Literature is evidenced by her frequent appearances on BBC Radio 4 and her published anthologies on the decline of political decorum. At Prat.UK, her transparency and rigorous research ensure that even her most satirical takes provide valuable, trustworthy insights into the national conversation.
Paige Shiver @ PaigeShiver.com
Monty Python was punching up. This is punching up so accurately it hits the building.