<P> It has also been suggested that the rhyme records the attempt by King Charles I to reform the taxes on liquid measures . He was blocked by Parliament, so subsequently ordered that the volume of a Jack (1 / 8 pint) be reduced, but the tax remained the same . This meant that he still received more tax, despite Parliament's veto . Hence "Jack fell down and broke his crown" (many pint glasses in the UK still have a line marking the 1 / 2 pint level with a crown above it) "and Jill came tumbling after". The reference to "Jill" (actually a "gill", or 1 / 4 pint) is said to reflect that the gill dropped in volume as a consequence . </P> <P> The suggestion has also been made that Jack and Jill represent Louis XVI of France, who was deposed and beheaded in 1793 (lost his crown), and his Queen Marie Antoinette (who came tumbling after), a theory made difficult by the fact that the earliest printing of the rhyme pre-dates those events . However, as the previous paragraph refers to King Charles I being in conflict with Parliament, the phrase "broke his crown" could also refer to that King's beheading in 1649 . </P> <P> There is also a local belief that the rhyme records events in the village of Kilmersdon in Somerset in 1697 when a local spinster became pregnant; the putative father is said to have died from a rock fall and the woman died in childbirth soon after . </P>

Nursery rhyme jack and jill went up the hill