page_title: The Rogue's March
section_title: American Revolution
hierarchical_section_title: The Rogue's March / Rough music, subversion and pageantry / American Revolution
caption_attribution_description: English: Page from Henry Beck's 786 1manuscript Flute Book, showing the well known fife tune Poor Old Tory a.k.a. The Rogue's March
context_page_description: The Rogue's March is a derisive piece of music, formerly used in the British, American and Canadian military for making an example of delinquent soldiers, typically when drumming them out of the regiment. It was also played during the punishment of sailors. Two different tunes are recorded; the better known has been traced back to a Cavalier taunt song originating in 1642. Unofficial lyrics were composed to fit the tune. The march was taken up by civilian bands as a kind of rough music to show contempt for unpopular individuals or causes, notably during the American Revolution. It was sometimes played out of context as a prank, or to satirise a powerful person. Historically The Rogue's March is the second piece of identified music known to have been performed in Australia.
context_section_description: Like Yankee Doodle, British troops were known to play the Rogue's March to annoy troublesome colonial citizens. When Paul Revere published a seditious cartoon a British regiment mustered outside the printer's shop: "With their colonel at their head and the regimental band playing the Rogue's March, they warned the publisher he would be next to wear a coat of tar and feathers".
  The colonials retaliated.  Fife and drum bands often played the Rogue's March while Loyalists were manhandled by mobs.  One victim included Leigh Hunt's father – a happening duly commemorated by the citizens of Philadelphia in a 1912 pageant.
  When Benedict Arnold was hanged in effigy for treachery his 'corpse' was carried in procession with fifes and drums playing the march.  And when the crowd pulled down the statue of George III in Bowling Green, New York, on 9 July 1776 they carried it off to the tune of the Rogue's March.
  A surviving manuscript shows the tune was also known as Poor Old Tory, 'Tory' being another name for Loyalist.
caption: Henry Beck's Flute Book, 1786.  He knew the tune as Poor Old Tory.
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