Sunday, October 18, 2009

Question from Brittany - Three Blind Mice

I was recently told by one of my teachers that the rhyme "The Three Blind Mice" had a reference to Queen Mary as the farmer's wife and that three protestant nobles were the three blind mice. Is this actually true or just a story believed to be true? And if true, then would the tone be more positive or negative to Mary? I think that the line "they all went after the farmer's wife" could be that the nobles might've wished to marry her or could be that the nobles "went after" her in a plot to put Elizabeth on the throne. Any help to clear my confusion would be helpful.

4 comments:

Marilyn R said...

I think the Three Blind Mice were the Protestant clergymen Latimer,Ridley and Cranmer put to death in Mary's reign.

Ladyhoby said...

hi Brittany the following web site has lots of rhymes and how the came about of course as we all know the more information from other sites the more you can get the truth but this may help you http://www.rhymes.
org.uk/
also check this site other rhymes have been mentioned

The Rose Crowned said...

I think that the three blind mice were also Hugh Latimer,Nicholas Ridley and Thomas Cranmer.
I know that the nursery rhyme Mary,Mary Quite Contrary was written in refference to Mary Stuart Queen of Scots.The maids in the rhyme are reffering to Mary Beton,Mary Seton,Mary Flemming and Mary Livingstone.

Anonymous said...

This won't help with your quest for an explination, I'm just desperate to know if anyone else had a laughing fit when they found out thier favorite childhood rhyme was about the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury being portrayed as a mouse?
Jolie Moira Jessalyn Dawson