Lucy Locket (I)

DESCRIPTION: "Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Kitty Fisher found it; Not a penny was there in it, Only ribbon round it."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1952 (Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes; they cite versions going back to 1842, but given the confusing history of the piece, this must be treated with caution); there is an apparent citation from 1894 (see NOTES)
KEYWORDS: clothes money playparty
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW) New Zealand Ireland
REFERENCES (9 citations):
Linscott-FolkSongsOfOldNewEngland, pp. 37-38, "Lucy Locket" (1 text, 1 tune, which has the "I Wrote a Letter" verse, the "Little dog" verse, and the "Lucy Locket" verse but which is said by Linscott to use the "Hunt the Squirrel" game)
Stout-FolkloreFromIowa 104, p. 133, "Nursery Rhyme" (1 text of two verses, the first being "Yankee Doodle" and the second "Lucy Locket/Hunt the Squirrel")
Byington/Goldstein-TwoPennyBallads, p. 107, "Lady Locket" (1 text)
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 312, "Lucy Locket" (1 text)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #279, p. 165 "(Lucy Locket)"
Jack-PopGoesTheWeasel, p. 123, "Lucy Locket" (1 text)
Dolby-OrangesAndLemons, p. 82, "Lucy Locket Lost Her Pocket" (1 text)
Peirce-KeepTheKettleBoiling, p. 50, "(Lucy Locket lost her pocket)" (1 text)
Sutton-Smith-NZ-GamesOfNewZealandChilden/FolkgamesOfChildren, p. 30, ""I sent a letter to my love"; "I had a little dog"; "Lucy Locket" (3 texts, the first being of the "Atisket, Atasket (I Sent a Letter to My Love)" type, the second of the "Hunt the Squirrel" type, the third being "Lucy Locket," but all apparently used for the same game)
Roud #19536
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Hunt the Squirrel" (lyrics)
NOTES [473 words]: Much ink has been expended trying to link this to specific historical personages -- e.g. Linscott-FolkSongsOfOldNewEngland claims Lucy and Kitty were "celebrated courtesans of the court of Charles II." Similarly Katherine Elwes Thomas, The Real Personages of Mother Goose, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1930, p. 238. The Opies, however, declare that all such links are speculative, and I incline to agree, but let's document anyway.
"Lucy," if this is about Charles II, was surely Lucy Walter, the mother of the Duke of Monmouth, for whom see "The Monmouth Rebel." Lucy was not, however, part of the court of Charles II, because she was dead before the Restoration. Nonetheless Charles had clearly lost interest in Lucy before she died, so she had lost her control of him, at least. It is interesting to note that Lucy Walter was usually penniless. But so was Charles II, before the restoration.
As for Kitty... the list of Charles's mistresses on pp. 284-285 of Antonia Fraser, Royal Charles: Charles II and the Restoration (British title King Charles II), 1979 (I use the 1980 Delta paperback) does not include any names that would logically result in a nickname of Kitty (There was a Barbara, and a Louise, and a Nell -- yes, as in Gwynn -- and a Moll and a Winifred and a Jane and a Mary and an Elizabeth and one known mostly by her husband's name. There were doubtless many others, but they weren't "major" mistresses, just few-night stands. Fraser, pp. 411-412, says that Charles had acknowledged children by seven women: Lucy Walter, Elizabeth Killigrew, Catharine Pegge, Barbara Villiers, Nell Gwynn, Moll Davis, and Louise de Kéroüalle (the latter his main mistress at the end of his life). So maybe it was Catharine Pegge -- "Kitty" could of course be a nickname for Catherine --, even though she didn't keep his attention long.
However, Charles's actual wife was Catherine of Braganza, and he hadn't had time for too many mistresses between the death of Luck Walter and the time he married Catherine.
It must be stressed that Lucy Walter and Catherine of Brazanza never met, and really could not have met. They did not compete for Charles's favors. Nonetheless by the standards that Elwes Thomas uses, this is one of her better ones. It's not a pure drug dream; it's sort of possible and sort of makes sense: Lucy Walter was Charles's first mistress (and she had no money), but Catherine of Braganza was his (only) wife. Which doesn't chance the fact that it is completely non-compelling.
I cite the rhyme as being found in the Midwest on the basis of p. 29 of Laura Ingalls WIlder, On the Way Home: The Diary of a Trip from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894, Harper & Row, 1962, where Laura wrote that "Nebraska reminds me of Lydia Locket's pocket, nothing in it, nothing on it, only the binding round it." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: OpOx312

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