Nearly Headless Nick's identity was Hogwarts' Ghosts Was Re: The Bloody Ba

[mitchbailey82 <MITCHBAILEY82@HOTMAIL.COM>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51601

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Maria Kirilenko 
<maria_kirilenko at y...> wrote:

> BTW - has anyone tried looking up Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington 
or another name that sound like that? I couldn't find anything. Is 
Nearly Headless Nick based on a RL person? 
> 
> Maria,
> 
Me:
Yes I have tried looking up Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington and I do 
think that he may be based on a RL person, although I believe the 
name is made up.

Ok so lets take the name:
If you put this into a search engine it just comes up with Nearly 
Headless Nick fan sites so I think its safe to assume that the name 
at least is made up.


OK so lets take the day he died 31st Oct:
This doesn't give us much apart from the fact that I would suggest 
that the fact that Lily and James died on the same day nearly 400 
years latter might be significant.

Now The Year: 1492
So what are the particulars of this year:
*Henry VII was on the throne 
*He's not that famous a King certainly not as notorious as Henry 
VIII, James I or Elizabeth I.
*However one thing of interest is that the Tower of London was his 
official residence so it's unlikely that Nearly Headless Nick would 
have been beheaded there in real life – however there always the 
authors equivalent of artistic licence.
* There were other claimants to the throne Perkin Warbeck landed in 
Ireland in 1491 and tried to invade England in 1495, 1496 and 1497.
*However the year 1492 in most notorious for this:

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. 

Most people know this rhyme and this is where I'd suggest JKR got the 
year of Nick's death from, so who he may or may not be based on may 
not/probably would not have been alive in this year.

So what famous Sir could he be based on?

The most famous Sir that was executed was Sir Walter Raleigh Queen 
Elizabeth I's favourite but beheaded by James I when his enemies 
turned James I against him. The reason I like this apart from the 
fact that he's a well known Sir who was beheaded, is because of the 
fact that he was beheaded by James I (in 1616) , and James I was the 
King who Guy Fawlkes was trying to blow up with the rest of 
parliament during the gunpowder plot – I just like the way it ties in 
with Dumbledore's phoenix.

So my feeling are that JKR got the year of death from the rhyme about 
Columbus but she based Nick on Sir Walter Raleigh.
However that is just my opinion.

Michelle