fiddle on your fiddle on your fiddle, said the fiddlers,
three jolly men are we.
Oh there’s none so rare as can compare
With King Cole and his fiddlers three.
Coel Hen (Coel The Old 350-420) is the most likely candidate for Old King Cole of nursery rhyme fame. Regarded by many to be the first king of the Dark Age (The dark age meaning a time in Britain’s history when there is a dearth of firm historical evidence and not that it was a particularly gloomy or foreboding era) and founder of one of the branches of the Old British Royal House.
A Romanised descendant of pre Roman, British Royalty, he was probably Duces Britanniorum ruling Northern Britain on behalf of Rome and continued on as king when the Romans withdrew. One of the kings that split the country between them when the Romans left, he ruled the North of Britain and the South of Scotland from his headquarters in York,
Coel’s last campaign according to legend took place in Scotland. At that time the Picts inhabited Scotland and the Scotti tribe from Ireland were beginning to settle the coastal regions of Argyle. Fearful that they would get together and attack the British kingdoms in Southern Scotland, Coel moved north and began to send raiding parties across the borders. The plan was that the Scotti and the picts would blame each other for the raids and one would attack the other. The plan failed and when they realise who was doing the raiding they joined forces to attack the kingdom of Strathclyde.
Coel and his army forced them out of Strathclyde and after harrying them into the hills, set up camp alongside the river Coyle in Ayreshire and penned them in. Unable to leave the hills because of Coel’s army the Picts and the Scotti suffered from starvation. In the end things became so bad that in desperation they made an all or nothing night attack. Coel’s men take by surprise were completely routed and scattered in every direction. Coel himself unused to the area became lost and after wandering about, eventually fell into a bog at Coilfield in Tarbolton Ayreshire and drowned.
His body was recovered and according to legend buried in a nearby mound. The tomb was opened and excavated in 1837 by a team led by Rev John Ritchie, an urn filled with burnt bones was found and four other urns, however these four disintegrated on being exposed to the air. Some say the urn was taken to Eglington Castle, and others that it was moved to the Church at Coylton. But since the parish records of that time were destroyed by fire, no record of the urn ever being there exists.
After his Death in 420 his Kingdom was split between his sons Ceneu and Garmonion and later split between their children, until the Coel dynasty ruled, North Rheged, South Rheged, Elmet, Bryneich, Ebraunc, Salway, Middle Britain and The Pennines. The splitting of kingdoms between the male offspring continued until the kingdoms became too small to divide and from then on they were handed down to the eldest male child.
Note: Despite the jolly pictures of the king smoking a pipe that generally accompany the nursery rhyme; the pipe would have been some kind of musical instrument that the king would play while being accompanied by his fiddlers three. And his bowl would have been his drinking bowl, not his tobacco bowl as there was no tobacco in those days.
