Boney Was a Warrior, Popular Ballad

“Boney Was a Warrior” has the rhythm of a sea shanty, a song sailors would sing while working to help keep their actions in time. This was just one of hundreds of ballads sung and played throughout the world in the years after Waterloo.

Copies of these folk songs could be found in broadsides, a sheet of cheap paper printed on one side with music, rhymes or news. Broadsides could be sold for as little as one penny, making them popular amongst the poorer classes of British society. Before an age of television or radio, singing and playing songs were a widespread form of entertainment. Ballads that mocked the French or Napoleon were especially common during the Napoleonic Wars.

Broadsides containing “Boney Was a Warrior” were published soon after the Battle of Waterloo, when the events of the long wars between Britain and France were still fresh in people’s minds. Even an uneducated audience would know that the references to Prussia, Moscow, and Trafalgar referred to major battles. The line about the “Billy Ruffian” refers to the Royal Navy warship HMS Bellerophon, aboard which Napoleon was held prisoner after the Battle of Waterloo.

The complete score for this and many other period folk songs and shanties can be seen here.