Several individuals have been proposed as the model for the song. Simon Symonds was vicar of Bray in 1522–51, during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. However the candidate favoured by church historian Thomas Fuller and dramatist Richard Brome was Simon Aleyn, vicar of Bray in 1557–65, during the reigns of Mary I and Elizabeth I. Although the song alludes to events of the 17th and 18th centuries, it could be that Bray had already developed a tradition of clerical 'realpolitik' and religious pliability as defence against the turbulence of Tudor religious upheavals.