Tom Canty
A beggar boy from Offal Court who dreams of princes, trades places with one, and finds himself king of England.
He wants, more than anything, to see a real prince with his own eyes, and later to get safely back to his own life.
The book
The Prince and the Pauper
Mark Twain
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeTom is clever, kind and a good actor. His daydreams about palaces prepare him for the part better than anyone expects, and he uses his short reign to pardon people. Being admired also goes to his head, and he pays for it.
How Tom Canty Is Portrayed
- A court in the gutterIn Chapter II he organises his friends into a pretend royal court, with himself as prince, and adults come to him to settle their disputes.
- Seeing Anne Askew burnedIn Chapter II he watches Anne Askew and three men burned at the stake at Smithfield, and finds the sermon dull.
- At the palace gateIn Chapter III he presses up to the gates of Westminster to see the prince, and a guard knocks him away.
- Nuts in the armour roomIn Chapter VII he fills his pockets with nuts at his first royal dinner and cracks them alone in his room, happy for the first time since he became a prince.
- The law of mercyIn Chapter XI, just proclaimed king at the Guildhall, he orders that the Duke of Norfolk shall not die and says the king's law will be a law of mercy.
- Pull off thy stockingsIn Chapter XV he frees a woman accused of raising storms by pulling off her stockings, then asks her to make one anyway. She cannot.
- I do not know you, womanIn Chapter XXXI he denies his own mother in the coronation procession, and the shame spoils the rest of the day for him.
Tom Canty quotes
Then shall the king’s law be law of mercy, from this day, and never more be law of blood!
To crack nuts with!
I do not know you, woman!
Tom helps Edward remember where he hid the Great Seal, and confesses he has been using it to crack nuts. Edward names him the King's Ward. He lives to be a very old man, and people take off their hats to him in the street.
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