Queen of Hearts, She Made Some Tarts, The

DESCRIPTION: "The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, All on a summer's day. The Knave of Hearts, he stole the tarts, And took them right away. The King of Hears called for the hearts, And beat the knave full sore. The knave... vowed he'd steal no more."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1782 (European Magazine, acording to Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes)
KEYWORDS: royalty theft cards
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 434, "The Queen of Hearts" (1 text)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #235, p. 152, "(The Queen of Hearts)"
Jack-PopGoesTheWeasel, p. 166, "The Queen of Hearts" (1 text)
Dolby-OrangesAndLemons, p. 60, "The Queen of Hearts" (1 text)
Roud #19298
NOTES [192 words]: I don't know how popular this was before Lewis Carroll used it as the basis for the trial of the Knave of Hearts in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but of course it has been incredibly well-known since then. The Baring-Goulds (note 37, beginning on p. 149) print the whole European Magazine version of 1782, which is much longer than the common version, and involves the other suits as well as the hearts -- e.g. the King of Spades "He kissed the maids, Which made the Queen full sore...."
Jack-PopGoesTheWeasel claims that Dodgson's take on the legend parodies Queen Victoria. But Dodgson was an extreme conservative, and strong monarchist; I flatly don't believe it.
The incomparable Katherine Elwes Thomas, The Real Personages of Mother Goose, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1930, p. 219, completely ignoring the parts of the poem not about the Queen of Hearts, claims this is about the "Winter Queen," Elizabeth, the daughter of James VI and I, who was briefly Queen of Bohemia and was grandmother of the future George I of England. As usual, Thomas's evidence consists of whatever it was she was smoking at the time she dreamed this up. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.2
File: OO2434

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