Dick Whittington and his Cat

In the legend of Dick Whittington, an impoverished boy escapes his poor background and goes to London (the streets of which are supposedly paved with gold), where he gets hired as a low-ranking servant before acquiring, for a penny, a cat that proves to be really good at catching rats. However, the cat ends up on board a merchant ship expedition organised by Dick’s master, and whilst at sea it impressively deals with a major rodent problem on board the ship. Dick, meanwhile, attempts to flee his station as a servant but thinks the better of it when he hears some bells tolling that seem to be telling him that he will one day be Lord Mayor of London. The merchant ship returns, having sold the cat to the Moors for a huge amount of money, and the master comes to Dick and gives him his share of the profits, which make him rich. Dick later marries the daughter of his former master and ends up becoming Mayor of London three times. It’s a classic rags-to-riches tale, but unlike the shadowy figures of Robin Hood and King Arthur, we can say with a much greater degree of certainty that Dick Whittington was a real historical figure. He was Richard Whittington, and he wasn’t from a poor background: he was a wealthy aristocrat who was Mayor of London three times and lived from around 1354 to 1423. Disappointingly, there’s no evidence to support the idea that he had a cat. These days, the legend is kept alive through the tradition of pantomime, a comic play usually performed around Christmas time; Dick Whittington is one of the most popular choices for Christmas pantomime and it’s how many people are still familiar with the story.