The King’s Cock Crower

Through Lent an officer of the royal household called the King’s Cock Crower used to crow the hours each night within the palace instead of calling them like a watchman, in memory of the cock that called St Peter to repentance. On the first Ash Wednesday after the Hanoverians came in, he burst in on the Prince of Wales at supper and crowed that it was past ten o’clock. The prince, who knew little English, took it as an insult and rose to resent it until the custom was explained. Chambers quotes Brady that nothing more is heard of the office after that, though a Cock and Cryer still appeared in the household lists of 1822.