Goosey goosey gander, Whither shall I wander? Upstairs and downstairs And in my lady's chamber. There I met an old man Who wouldn't say his prayers, So I took him by his left leg And threw him down the stairs. So goes an old nursery rhyme. It probably refers to the period in England between 1649 and 1660 called The Commonwealth. Oliver Cromwell was the first ruler during this period, the "Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland", from 1653 to 1658. Commonwealth literally means republic. But that just basically means you don't have a monarch. China is officially called the People's Republic of China. Actually Cromwell had a pretty bad record on freedoms and rights. He banned things like plays and Christmas. Probably because they were associated with drunkenness. Christmas had turned into a riot by his time. And he also continued the tradition of persecuting people in England who still considered themselves Roman Catholic. Belonging to the RC church was considered a form of spiritual treason. And whether you were a priest, or even just a layman, death was the usual penalty. The opening to the rhyme "Goosey goosey gander" refers to the goose step, which was often used in totalitarian regimes like his. The foot was raised and quickly stomped on the ground with each step. "Whither shall I wander? Upstairs and downstairs, And in my lady's chamber" refers to Cromwell's forces looking for priest holes. A hiding place in many English manors where people went to attend mass, which as I said was illegal in England at the time. "There I met an old man Who wouldn't say his prayers" refers to the fact that Henry VIII closed down all the Catholic religious institutions like monasteries and seminaries between 1536 and 1541. Anyone who was still a priest by the 1650's would be pretty old by then. And as I said, it was considered spiritual treason. So they were arrested, literally for just not saying the right prayers. They were then tried, and usually publicly executed, as I said. But when they arrested them, they often added insult to injury by using unnecessary roughness on these old men, often doing things like throwing them down the stairs before they were even imprisoned awaiting trial.
