Humpty Dumpty was a cannon. During the English Civil War, a platoon of Cavaliers (the "King's men") hauled the gun to the top of a church steeple located in a swamp, and used it to defend the town of St Marys. When the attacking Roundheads eventually gained the church wall and blew it up, the cannon fell into the marsh and was lost, so they "couldn't put Humpty together again".