Poetic licence

A Gallup survey of 16-24 year-olds' knowledge of English history elicited some suprisingly creative answers...

THE NEW ENGLISH HISTORY

It all began at Hastings

In nineteen fifty-two

When William, Duke of Normans

A foreign parvenu

Let loose the sniper's bullet

Which hampered Harold's view.

Around this time, in Scotland

Will Wallace wiped the floor

With Richard Nixon's army

Who having lost the war

Now signed the Magna Carta

An early sort of truce

At 12.15 near Windsor

The castle of King Bruce.

King Albert, known as Lionheart

Who'd found it hard to cope

At Canterbury Cathedral

Sent knights to kill the Pope

The Spanish King, being Catholic

Dispatched a great Armada

But lost it to King Arthur

Whose English fleet was harder

The IRA and Guy Fawkes

Began now to conspire

To blow Big Ben to pieces

And may have caused the fire

To London's main cathedral

Which had an overhaul

King Henry gave this job to

The architect, St Paul