"The Noble Duke of York" (also sung as "The Grand Old Duke of York") is an English children's nursery rhyme, often performed as an action song. Like many popular nursery rhymes the origins of the song are probably political. Candidates for the duke in question include: Richard, Duke of York (1411–1460), who was defeated at the Battle of Wakefield on 30 December 1460. James II (1633–1701), formerly Duke of York, who in 1688 marched his troops to Salisbury Plain to resist the invasion from his son-in-law William of Orange, only to retreat and disperse them as his support began to evaporate. Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany (1763–1827), the second son of King George III and Commander-in-Chief of the British Army during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. A similar Nursery rhyme is "The King of France Went Up the Hill". The lyrics were not printed in their modern form until relatively recently, in Arthur Rackham's Mother Goose in 1913. This song is sometimes sung to other tunes such as "A-Hunting We Will Go" and "Ain't No Bugs on Me". It is in the Roud Folk Song Index as #742.