The Bastard King of England is a song misattributed to the Poet Laureate during whose reign?
The Bastard King of England "The Bastard King of England" is a bawdy English folk song commonly misattributed to Rudyard Kipling, or less commonly Tennyson, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, and Charles Whistler. The earliest known appearance of the song was in 1927. The song depicts various sexual escapades involving the title character, an unnamed Queen of Spain, a French king named Phillip, and the "Duke of Zippity-Zap" who gives the King a case of the clap. The song has a number of historical inaccuracies, since the last French king to bear the name Phillip died in the 14th century, but Spain would not become a united kingdom until the 15th. Also, it would be quite impossible to drag anyone from France to England behind a horse before the Channel Tunnel was dug.
Charles Swain (poet) Charles Swain (4 January 1801 – 22 September 1874) was an English poet and engraver, born in Manchester. He was honorary professor of poetry at the Manchester Royal Institution, and in 1856 was granted a civil list pension. His friends included Robert Southey. Swain's epitaph for John Horsefield is noted by English Heritage as an element of their rationale for listing Horsefield's tomb as a Grade II monument.