Song information On this page you can find the lyrics of the song A Rough Guide to the Royal Succession (It’s just one damn King after another...), artist - The King's Singers. Album song Royal Rhymes and Rounds, in the genre Мировая классика
Date of issue: 03.06.2012
Record label: Signum
A Rough Guide to the Royal Succession (It’s just one damn King after another...) |
Our monarchs stand in sturdy line, |
A chain that history forges |
Of Edwards, Richards, Williams, |
Of Charleses, Jameses, Georges. |
Some were bluff and hearty, |
Some periwigged and prim – |
And then there’s Cromwell, |
But we don’t mention him! |
(That warty Lord Protector, |
We’d better not mention him) |
First of all we had those early kings |
With names that no-one can spell: |
Cerdic and Ceolwulf, |
Egbert and Athelstan, |
And Ethelbald as well. |
Who they were and what they did |
Is veiled in myth – |
Aethelred the Unredey |
And his mother Aelfthrith. |
Their behaviour was brutal, |
They were far from being saints. |
And with rats and lice and flies |
It will come as no surprise |
Many suffered from peculiar complaints – but… |
Great Alfred was our founder, |
With tresses long and flaxen, |
Proud and independent, |
Indubitably Saxon. |
In politics and fighting |
He had just what it takes, |
While drifting from the kitchen |
Came a smell of burning cakes. |
He lit the torch of freedom |
That none on earth could quench, |
Till William (The Bastard) |
Tried to make us speak in French: |
Those nasty knights from Normandy |
Came over babbling French. |
England was a fair field, |
A fair field full of folk: |
Counting the inhabitants |
Had got beyond a joke. |
There were farms, there were estates, |
There were smithies, there were mills, |
Swine in the orchards and sheep on the hills. |
William counted everything, |
From hall to inglenook: |
Ev’ry stable, shed or conservatory, |
They all went into a book. |
So when it came to taxes |
No-one was off the hook – |
It all went down in the Domesday Book! |
William’s son was Rufus, he had |
Red hair and a florid face, |
But he was not just florid, |
He was really rather horrid, |
His personal skills a disgrace. |
With his friends in the forest he hunted a lot |
Till he finally reached his penalty spot, |
And on that spot |
He was shot. |
Henry the First enjoyed his meals, |
But expired having eating too many eels. |
Henry the Second, he suffered no end |
For causing the death of Becket, his friend: |
Kneeling in the cathedral crypt |
He found it helped to be lightly whipped – |
Like a syllabub he was lightly whipped. |
King Stephen was almost |
Escorted from the premises |
By menacing Matilda, his arch-nemesis. |
His wife, it’s true, was a Matilda too. |
Being spied on either side |
By a Matilda meant |
Bewilderment! |
Richard the First was a warrior bold – |
The heart of a lion had he. |
A fearless crusader, yet skilled in minstrelsy. |
A captive in a foreign land, |
His singing set him free. |
Far from home, I languish |
In misery, and … anguish! |
His faithful minstrel heard him, |
“I know that voice!” |
cried he. |
He made a dash for a cashpoint, |
And Richard soon was free. |
But how can we know? |
We may never know what really occurred |
With Richard the Second and Richard the Third. |
You can never be sure. |
Richard the Fourth was a cunning hoax: |
Perkin Warbeck with one of his jokes! |
Some monarchs come in two parts, |
Like Shakespeare’s Henry Four, |
And some go forth like Hen. |
the Fifth |
En route to Agincourt: |
Our King went forth to Normandie |
With grace and might of Chivalrie! |
A milder mix was Henry Six, |
A seeker after knowledge: |
He built a certain chapel |
At a certain Cambridge College, |
Renowned for its musicians among other things: |
A famous band of minstrels started life at King’s. |
Magna Carta, bad King John, |
Edwards One, Two, Three, |
Murder, war and pestilence, |
Revolting peasantry! |
Scheming and ambitious, |
Split apart by feud or faction, |
But in their hearts they knew their parts: |
The warm-up act before the main attraction – |
The Tudors! |
Pastime with good companie – |
Oh how we love that Tudor dynasty! |
All their pastimes airing on TV, |
Their company is “Tudors PLC”. |
There’s love, of course, |
And serial divorce, |
And tons of jewellery: |
They’re now a brand, |
Preserved and canned, |
So buy the DVD! |
Tudors all were really Welsh |
With Celtic kith and kin. |
Stuarts all were bonny Scots, |
With a little bit of French thrown in. |
They drove out James the Second, |
(No-one liked him much) |
And wheeled in William of Orange |
Who turned out to be Dutch. |
Queen Anne was fond of drinking tea |
Which quite restored the British monarchy; |
But soon we had a shocking new experience: |
One hundred years of German Hanoverians! |
And here are the results in reverse order: |
A man of style was George the Fourth, |
But corpulent and lazy. |
George the Third said “What, what, what?” |
And went a little crazy. |
It seems that George the Second |
Immortality was seeking; |
May the King live for ever |
Amen, Allelujah, Amen. |
While George the First was “English-averse” |
And didn’t even want to BE King! |
William the Fourth was a naval man, |
With Nelson he worked hard to keep the peace. |
He hadn’t much to bring to the job, |
But he paved the way for his dutiful young niece. |
Victoria had everything: |
An army and a navy no foreign foe could crush, |
The mightiest of empires, and toilets that could flush. |
Postage stamps and railways, |
Christmas trees and garden gnomes, |
(Alfred, Lord) Tennyson and Dickens and Disraeli, |
D’Oyly Carte and Sherlock Holmes. |
As soon as his Mother vacated the throne |
Edward the Seventh lowered the tone. |
George the Fifth shunned glitz and glamour, |
But left his son with a bit of a stammer. |
Life grew ever darker and austerer |
Till the dawning of a new Elizabethan era |
So give three hearty cheers |
For they have mellowed with the years, |
Now they feel our pain and share our woe. |
They may be stalked by hacks, |
They’d have to pay the tax, |
And sit through the Royal Variety Show. |
Oh no! |
You may not see them on the bus, |
But they’re just a bit like us |
With their barbecues and TV soaps. |
They may no longer have the power |
To lock us in the Tower |
Or have interminable arguments with Popes. |
But… |
Our monarchs stand in sturdy line, |
A chain that history forges |
Of Edwards, Richards, Williams, |
Of Charleses, Jameses, Georges. |
So after one thousand years |
What will the future be? |
We couldn’t really comment. |
You’ll just have to wait and see! |