Old Rowley


Old Rowley was the name of a stallion racehorse belonging to King Charles II of England. The Rowley Mile Racecourse at Newmarket, Suffolk, developed by the king as a national centre for horseracing, is named after the horse. As the stallion was libidinous and "renowned for the number and beauty of its offspring", Old Rowley became a nickname for the king himself, who had many mistresses and sired many illegitimate children.

Ballad

The first verse of the old anonymous lewd ballad Old Rowley the King, sung to the tune of Old Simon the King, is as follows:

Mrs Holford anecdote

A traditional anecdote concerning a "Mrs Holford" was first related in 1769 by James Granger as follows:
The story was later related in 1808 in the Edinburgh Budget of Wit as follows:
A later renditioning of the story by Wheatley relates that the king at one of his palaces

Modern usage

In modern times, in 1940 a racehorse called Old Rowley won the Melbourne Cup, Australia's major thoroughbred horse race.