Oh, Girl Friday, I don't believe the attribution to Kipling, either - but that's what it says in bold print in Immortalia (1927). Ed Cray says the version in Immortalia was the earliest he found - Cray said nothing about the 1929 Frank Crummit version, but I have to think that somehow it's earlier than the bawdy song. The version in Cray's Erotic Music is very similar to the version in Immortalia but it has a chorus - and a tune. Here 'tis:

THE BASTARD KING OF ENGLAND

Oh, the minstrels sing of an English king
Who lived long years ago,
And he ruled his land with an iron hand,
But his mind was weak and low.
He used to hunt the royal stag
Within the royal wood,
But better than this he loved the bliss,
Of pulling his royal pud.

Chorus:
He was dirty and lousy and full of fleas.
His terrible tool hung to his knees.
God save the bastard king of England.

Now the Queen of Spain was an amorous dame
A sprightly dame was she,
And she longed to fool with his majesty's tool
So far across the sea.
So she sent a royal message
With a royal messenger
Inviting the king to bring his ding
And spend the week with her.

When news of this reached Philip of France,
He swore before his court,
"The queen prefers my rival
Just because my dork is short."
So he sent the Duke of Zippity-Zap
To slip the queen a dose of clap
To pass it on to the bastard King of England.

When news of this foul, dastardly deed
Reached fair Windsor Hail,
The king swore by the royal whore
He'd have the Frenchman's balls.
So he offered half his kingdom
And the hole of Queen Hortense
To any loyal Briton
Who would nut the King of France.

So the loyal Duke of Essexshire
Betook himself to France.
When he swore he was a fruitier,
The king took down his royal pants.
Then around his prong he tied a thong,
Leaped on his horse and galloped along,
Dragging the Frenchman
Back to England.

Now the king threw up his breakfast
And he shit all over the floor,
For during the ride, the Frenchman's pride
Had stretched a yard or more.
And all the maids of England
Came down to London town,
And shouted 'round the battlements,
"To hell with the British crown."

Last Chorus:
So the King of France usurped the throne.
His sceptre was his royal bone.
Hail to the bastard
King of England.


Source: The Erotic Muse (Ed Cray, 1992), pp. 122-124

Also in Cray's Bawdy Ballads [click for a kick] (1970), pp. 37-39

Cary's notes:

It's really a very good story; backstairs gossip about palace intrigue is always interesting. As the story goes, Rudyard Kipling wrote "The Bastard King of England" (pronounced "En-ga-land") and that authorship cost him the poet laureate's knighthood. It is too bad that the attribution is apparently spurious; "The Bastard King" would undoubtedly be Kipling's most popular work.

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