678. Britain: God Save the King (Part 2)

This episode is brought to you by Lloyd's Business and Commercial Banking. One of the great things about finance is that it may result in you having to pay tax, and this was a constant grumble in Anglo-Saxon England, which was the most heavily taxed country in the whole of Christendom, and just when the Anglo-Saxons thought it couldn't get any worse, they got conquered by King Canute, and Canute imposed a tax rate that was effective ally 100%. Yeah, well, that was one very big change, Tom, but another tax change is upon us. And this is the advent of making tax digital for income tax. And if you're at all concerned about it, this is where Lloyd's come in, because they're here to help make that change much simpler for you with a useful HMLRC-recognised accounting tool that will help you stay in line with all the making tax digital requirements. And the brilliant thing about this is that it is free for Lloyd's business account customers. So when it is time to digitise your income tax, you can bank on Lloyd's. Search Lloyd's Business Accounts to find out more. [Music] So, that is the stirring song that England's finest will be belting out next week. When we meet Croatia for the first match in our ultimately victorious 2026 World Cup campaign. So the campaign that we'll go down in history, seeing Thomas Tuchel rewarded with a knighthood, Harry Kane, Patrick and the final, all very exciting. So hello everybody, welcome to the second in our World Cup themed series about the history behind the national anthems of the most interesting contenders. I was about to say the top contenders, but I don't think South Africa are a top contender, but they're the most interesting. Now obviously Tom, we were always going to do good to save the cane because we are of course a patriotic podcast. But also because this is a brilliant example of how a very familiar anthem can open up this window into a very interesting area of history. Specifically in this case, at period of history we haven't done as much of on this show as we should have done, which is the 18th century. So we're talking a lot about the politics of the 18th century, but before then, just on the anthem itself, I think very unfairly, people often diss this anthem and they say it's a bit, I think because it's often played badly by the British. A durch. They say it's a durch. A durch. I think it's a legal requirement to say that it is a durch. I don't think it is a durch, but there you go. Well, I'm quite fond of it as well. I have to say, but I would, I mean, maybe you would disagree. I don't think it has the kind of operatic power, strutting, bombastic. So we've done two national anthems before this. One was the previous one, the Star Spangled Banner, burning the White House, attacking Baltimore, all of that. But before that, as part of our French Revolution series, we did the Marseilles episode 5.07 for people who haven't heard it. Now, I know that you disagree on this. I think it is a thrilling national anthem. I'm a little bit envious of it. And just to remind people, the background of the Marseilles, written in 1792 as the infant French Republic was seriously facing the prospect of being strangled in its cradle by the invading armies of Austria and Prussia. And this invasion was the opening shot in a war that Britain was going to enter very soon afterwards, following the execution of Louis XVI. And for both the American and the French Revolutionaries, Britain really constitutes the great rival, the great opponent to their respective revolutions. And the consequence of this is decades of conflict. So with the Americans, they're at war for eight years through the War of Independence. Their Republic would not have been established without that war. And the French, what begins as a revolutionary war, will end up the Napoleonic Wars and go on all the way from 1793 through to 1815 kind of on and off. And of course, this isn't just a military or naval conflict. It is an ideological one because both the American and the French Revolutions establish republics. And those republics proselytize a kind of militant repudiation of monarchy. And Britain is the monarchy, par excellence. But the way the ideological conflicts work, it's a ratchet effect, isn't it? So the more radical one side becomes, the more the other side doubles down on its previous ideological commitments. And that's true of British monarchism, isn't it, that people more and more come to see the British monarchy not just as part of the furniture, but the more that tax evaders in the United States and Jacobins in France rail against the principle of monarchy, the more that the Edmund Berks of this world come to construct a kind of ideological defense of it and to actually see monarchy, not just as something they've inherited, but as an intrinsically good and worthwhile thing in itself. All the Jack Aubrey's played by Russell Crowe, do you want to see a guillotine in Piccadilly? Yes. Absolutely. The more that the French, for instance, go on about their republic, the more the British cling to the ideal of monarchy, the figure of George III as, you know, farmer George, a kind of homely, lovable figure as opposed to the menacing figure of Robespierre or Napoleon. And of course, with the French Revolution, you also get the whole closing down churches and turning Notre Dame into a temple of reason kind of thing. And Britain is a very god-fearing country in this period, so people like Nelson absolutely appalled by what they see as this kind of atheistic state that has emerged across the channel. And it confirms them in their opinion that they are fighting people who have absolutely terrible opinions, their anti-monarchy, their anti-Christianity. And because of that, the inevitable corollary is that God must be on Britain's side. And if that is the case, then why shouldn't he save the king? It seems perfectly reasonable to ask God to save the king. And I think that particularly during the Napoleonic Wars, where it's a life or death struggle for Britain, this request to God to save the British king, it's not an idol formula. I mean, it is a really kind of desperately heartfelt prayer, I think. Would you agree with that? Well, I mean, if you're sailing to action at Trafalgar or something, you believe that you are on the side of what is right, that God is with you. Yeah, that Britain is defending God's cause against these atheistic rule. French men are there corrupt, usurping, tyrant, the Corsican monster. So yeah, absolutely. I think people take it really seriously. And the Jack Aubrey character is, well, all Nelson. I mean, they're brilliant examples of that. Yeah. And so the God aspect of the God save the king is important. And this is something that I hadn't really appreciated until I started looking into the backstory of God save the king. It is in this period that Napoleon it was that God save the king is enshrined as the national anthem. And I'm putting the emphasis there on the word anthem. And I think we're so used to that as a phrase today that it's very easy to forget what anthem originally meant, which is essentially a kind of a musical setting for a religious text. And again, the context for why it matters that the God save the king is an anthem is the fact that Britain sees itself at being a war with a militantly atheist rival. And this atheism for the British is focused by the fact that on the 14th of July 1795, the must-aise is officially enshrined. France is shortnessier now, so the national song. And the British respond to that by terming God save the king an anthem. So they are effectively sacralizing the idea of a national song. They are explicitly Christianizing it. And this formulation, I'm glad to say, is so influential that by the end of the 19th century, so in 1879, even the French succumb and the must-aise is retrospectively titled by the French a national hymn rather than a national song. Can I ask a question about you say, it's this point that it becomes enshrined as the country's anthem. But it's enshrined by convention rather than by parliamentary statute or something. Yeah, it's increasingly called an anthem. It's something that people sing as a Christian as well as a kind of patriotic duty. Well, doesn't that sort of fit the idea of the British have for themselves, that their constitution is made up of practices that have evolved over long periods of time organically, like a tree rather than being artificially created in a lab, like the bonkers experiments of the United States and France. Yeah, because both the Star Spangled Banner, even though that obviously becomes a national anthem much later, but it is written during a period of war with Britain, as is unit of the Marseilles just precedes the war with Britain. They're both songs that are appropriate to self-consciously revolutionary states, republics which have eliminated a monarchy and all the kind of traditions that are associated with a monarchy, and therefore both the American and the French revolutionary states have to draw up constitutions from scratch, and they are incredibly famous aspects of the republics that get established in America and France respectively, whereas Britain by contrast has kept its monarchy and its constitution is unwritten, and this is a cause of great pride for the British. They don't need kind of newfangled constitutions because their constitution stretches back over the centuries ultimately all the way back to the Anglo-Saxons, and the constitution has evolved over time in kind of fits and starts, and God save the king, as an anthem, is perfectly suited to such a state because God save the king, unlike the Marseilles, unlike the Star Spangled Banner, was not written in response to a specific occasion, so an attack or a naval assault or anything like that. Instead, no one is really sure where it came from. I think by the Napoleonic period, people don't know who'd written it, they don't know when it had been written it, they don't even really know why it had been written. But like the constitution, it just exists. But there are various theories where it's come from, of course, and we'll be delving into some of them, but just to give people a sense, there's still no really definitive answer to some of those questions, is there? Well, we will come to this, but you're right that in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, the establishment of God save the king as a national anthem in Britain. Obviously, British historians are really intrigued to try and work out where it might have come from, and I think particularly who might have composed it? And they want to have a composer who is of sufficient status, but it's a properly national composer. So one very popular theory in the Victorian period is that God save the king was written by Henry Purcell, who at the great 17th century composer, probably the greatest English composer, I mean, that's not saying much, I guess, Dido Neneus. Dido Neneus, the first great opera written in English, I mean, he's capable of writing all kinds of different music, and he does have the status as the great English composer. You can see why people might have wanted him to have composed God save the king. This is a very popular candidate who's earlier than Purcell, a century earlier, so in the 16th century, and this was a keyboard virtuoso who had the unimproveable name of John Bull. Yeah, he couldn't make this up. I mean, he did compose a melody that, I mean, if you, I guess if you're kind of half deaf, it vaguely resembles God save the king, but I think the reason that people are so keen on having John Bull as the composer of God save the king is his name because John Bull, you know, it's the figure of Britain, isn't it? It isn't it. There's also the fact that he is an Elizabethan, and so that is to push the origins of the National Anthem back to the age of Francis Drake and William Shakespeare, you know, the golden age of England. And in 1937, a Welshman, great, have a Welshman on the show, have a Welshman. A musicologist called Lay Henry, he proposed that God save would have been God save the queen then, that it had been composed on the direct command of Elizabeth I in 1588 to celebrate the defeat of the Armada. Well, sadly, there is absolutely zero evidence for this, and it has to be said that Lay Henry is a faint sinister figure and an implausible figure. So he was a druid. I mean, that's not to cast aspersions on druids, but druids are basically invented in the 19th century. So that would imply an enthusiasm for bogus history. Right, there's no strangers to contrivances. No, he was also a bigger mist, so I think maybe not necessarily to be trusted. On top of that, he was also a notorious pro-Nazi and got locked up in 1940 as a security threat. So I think Lay Henry isn't entirely trustworthy as a musicologist. Yeah. Do you have another musicologist in the wings? Do, fortunately. Perhaps with very different ideological leanings, he may be able to resolve this murky question for us. I do Dominic, and this is a guy called Percy A Skoles. Now, on one level, he is very much not a Sandbrookian figure. So he was vice president of the vegetarian society, and there was nothing he enjoyed of an evening than a delicious slap-up dinner containing a couple of carrots. So that was what he would be served with. So he's incredibly thin and spindly. He would be unwelcome when to get together with their producers at Wilton's in Mayfair. Yes, he would. He absolutely would. On the other hand, he's a man who has no time for kind of canting academics. He's always being fabulously rude about academics he doesn't respect in reviews. And I think there's a slight quality of Sandbrook about that. Yeah. And he definitely loved Britain as well. Well, he ticks some boxes, but not others. Yeah. We wouldn't have lunch together, that's for sure. So in 1942, obviously, Britain fighting the war against Nazis and all of that. He published a book on God Save the King. And you can see, you know, the kind of the mood of national beleaguement, why he would be interested in that. Yeah. This book is clearly inspired by this kind of general mood of patriotism, but I think also with impatience with kind of clowns, sinister clowns, Lee Henry. So he wrote in the introduction to this book, few subjects have been discussed with such general irresponsibility statements that have no rational foundation, whatever being seriously repeated on every occasion when the subject is brought forward and gained ingredients by mere force of repetition. Okay. So what does he think? His conclusions are essentially, I think, today accepted as far as I can tell by musicologists as being pretty conclusive. So first of all, he nails down the precise point at which the song goes viral. And this is in the autumn of 1745 and 1745 is one of the most dramatic years in the whole of 18th century British history, because on the 23rd of July, 1745, Prince Charles Edward Stewart, who is better known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, had landed on an island off the west coast of the Scottish Highlands. So Bonnie Prince Charlie was the grandson of James the 7th of Scotland, who was also James the 2nd of England, and back in 1688 in what's the British came to call the glorious revolution. He had been forced into exile essentially for being too Catholic, too absolutist, too keen to model himself on the example of the sun king, the kind of great French absolutist king. And Bonnie Prince Charlie's aim in landing in the Highlands was to claim the British throne back for the Stuart's, the lion of James the 2nd, for his father, the old pretender. And to achieve this, Bonnie Prince Charlie needs to claim the throne back for the Stuart's from the dynasty that has replaced the Stuart's. And this is the house of Hanover, and specifically it is one of the many George's that reign in the 18th century, and this is George the 2nd. George the 2nd is the king of Great Britain. He is also the elector of Hanover, so he's a German, but more saliently from the point of view of the British elites, he is a Protestant, whereas the Stuart's are Catholic. And so it's stake in the autumn of 1745, when Bonnie Prince Charlie has landed in Scotland and is preparing an army to attack the Hanoverian monarchy. You've got two rival versions of monarchy, and the first is the Stuart vision of monarchy, the Stuart's claim, they are the rightful ruling dynasty because their legitimacy derives from God and from heredity. So they are descended from Mary Queen of Scots, and before that the line of the Stuart's reaching back all the way into the Middle Ages. And essentially you may not like their religion, you may not like their absolute trends, but God has decreed that they should be king, and you can't just kind of sack them because you don't like that. And this is the view of lots of people still in Britain, and we have actually done a series about one of those people already this year, and that is Samuel Johnson. Yeah, it's a Tory tradition. Tory traditions. James Boswell as well, his logo for both of them were Jacobites. So Jacobites named after Jacobus, the Latin for James. But then the other view of monarchy is the Hanoverian one, the supporters of the Hanoverian monarchy, George II, they say, well, the Hanoverians are the rightful ruling dynasty of Britain because their legitimacy derives less from heredity than from an act of parliament. And that is to transform the crown, not into an inheritance that derives from divine right, you know, the favor of God or whatever, but it's specifically a gift of parliament, and Britain is a Protestant country, and therefore it needs a Protestant king. And those are the two visions of monarchy that are kind of being brought together in 1745. So the nature and character of monarchy in Britain is a massively live issue, and it's threatening a civil war. But one vision is seen as more modern and is more widely accepted in the prosperous kind of south of Great Britain isn't it and that is the Hanoverian model what you might call the week model the idea that the crown gets its legitimacy from Parliament but that's not the case on the periphery in the wilder parts which is precisely why Bonnie Prince Charlie has headed for the Highlands of Scotland yes where actually he does tremendously well because the clans there kind of flocked to his his cause in his banner and by the autumn of 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie seems to have the whole of Scotland at his feet so he's captured Edinburgh he's defeated a Hanoverian army at a place called Preston Pans about 10 miles outside Edinburgh and he is preparing to invade England and the news of this has reached London which is a city overwhelmingly loyal to the Hanoverian settlement and there is massive panic there kind of runs on banks there are loads of caricatures showing terrifying Scotsman in kilts kind of advancing on London you know absolute mood of trauma but this trauma generates kind of immense effusions of pro-Hanoverian sentiment they're kind of rallying to the Hanoverian flag and it is this kind of mood of pro-Hanoverian mingled panic and enthusiasm that Percy Skulls in his book on God save the King demonstrated was when God save the King first kind of erupts onto the national stage and when I say national stage I kind of mean it literally because it makes it debut as a kind of great national song at a theatre dominant where we have done a show yeah the theatre royal drew Elaine no less so one of my very favorite theatres and we can do this precisely can't we to can is it September September 1748th of September 1745 and an announcement appeared in the general advertiser and I will read it we hear Mr. Lacey master of his majesty's company of comedians at the theatre royal injury lane has applied for leave to raise 200 men in defense of his majesty's person and government in which the whole company of players are willing to engage so that is they are rallying to the defense of George the second right and that same evening at the theatre royal they're staging a performance of Ben Johnson's comedy the alchemist and everyone sits in the audience and watches it and ends lots of applause the curtain comes down and then before people can leave their seats in theatre royal the curtain goes back up it kind of rises unexpectedly and we are told by another newspaper the daily advertiser what happens next the audience were agreeably surprised by the gentleman belonging to that house performing the anthem of God save our noble king the universal applause it met with being on court with repeated hasas we love a hasar sufficiently denoted in how just an abhorrence they hold the arbitrary schemes of our in videos enemies and detest the despotic attempts of paper power so what you've got in this scene is actors who have volunteered to defend King George and Protestant freedom against the designs of the stewards in the form of Bonnie Prince Charlie the Pope menacing highlanders and kilts all these kind of terrifying enemies they're standing there on the stage in London's preeminent theatre and they're singing this incredibly patriotic song and obviously if you were a fan of the Hannah variance settlement as everyone is in this theatre I mean this is absolute catnip you couldn't be happier about it you know well we've got a lot of listeners who are actors themselves so the actor Samuel West is a listener to this and I would I would pay good money to see him standing on stage belting out God save the king I mean recruited all his mates to joy live to fight the king against Britain's enemies I would pay enormous sums of money to see him doing that and they keep doing this night after night yeah and it generates massive enthusiasm among the theatre going public of London and it starts to spread so by the 10th of October the great rival of the theatre role in Drury Lane which is the theatre in Coffin Garden they start singing God save the king you know if you can't beat them join them it's gone viral and it starts to spread out into the provinces so by the 4th of November this new craze for singing God save the king has reached bath we we have reports and by the end of the following year so by which point Bonnie Prince Charlie has launched his aborted invasion of England he's turned back at Darby he's been defeated at the Battle of Colodden he has fled Scotland forever disguised as a maid this song is being heard everywhere and I think it's no exaggeration to call it you know the first pop song the first pop song it is sung everywhere in a way that I think songs had not previously been okay it is easily the most effective piece of propaganda in the whole story of the Jacobi invasion you know it's a massive kind of popular triumph of pro hanoverian sentiment and so obviously George the second thinks this is great I'm suddenly the star of a pop song I mean what's not to like who wouldn't know that but is there perhaps a twist of course there is always this whole kind of emergence of God save the king as a pro hanoverian anthem it is shadowed by a certain irony because the 28th of september 1745 when it it is sung on the stage of theatre royal that may have been when god save the king first hits the west end but as as goals acknowledges in his book the song itself is much older we know when it goes viral but we still don't know when it was written or who wrote it so skulls is very contemptuous of the idea that a single composer whether it's John bull whether it's Henry Busell whether it's anyone who you can put a name to that anyone named had written the melody and he his argument is that it emerges communally and that it's true origins will never be known and I gather that musicologists today still agree and just to reiterate I mean that is what makes it perfect if you're a fan of the british constitution because it's organic it's organic it's kind of risen up from the the hearts of the people yeah so that's the tune what about the words this is where they are and he really kicks in because skull in his book quotes a letter that was written on the 10th of october 1745 to David Garrick the greatest actor of the day and in this letter surprise is expressed by the writer of the letter at the sudden craze for god save the king the guy who's writing to Garrick says these are the very words and music of an old anthem that was sung in st. James's chapel for King James the second James the second is the Catholic absolute is grandfather of the Prince Charlie so he is the kind of uber jackabyte skulls quotes other contemporary letters other contemporary sources and these are all making the same claim that god saved the king had not originally been a Hannah variance song it had been a jackabyte song and he has this brilliant phrase the british national anthem is a turncoat it's gone from being a jackabyte anthem to being a Hannah variant anthem so absolute scenes anthems are always malleable so all through the six episodes we'll be doing stories about anthems that were rewritten yeah or reinterpreted we've already had examples when we did the start bangle banner but I mean one of the things about god save the king is I mean we've already rewritten ourselves in our own lifetimes because we switched from god save the queen to god save the king didn't we yeah they're even really thinking about it's not like somebody told us to do it it just was the natural thing to do so because there's no it's that I'm right since saying there's no approved state sanctioned text there is no authorized version so you will find a version on say the royal family's website yeah but it's not kind of legally prescribed in the way that the macea's is right we heard the legislation required to inscribe yes star span called banner at the american national anthem and because of that it's always been incredibly easy for people to rewrite so those lines that I quoted from the the newspaper report when it was first sung on the state of of jury lane in 1745 I mean they are ambiguous so just to repeat them god save our lord the king long live our noble king I mean it's not clear which king that's referring to I mean it could be the steward king as well as the hanevarian king actually if you're not naming the king if you're not specifying who the king is it's it's pretty easy to appropriate it on both sides that said what becomes the second verse is is clearly I think written by hanevarian supporters so to remind people the second verse may he defend our laws and ever give us cause to sing with heart and voice god save the king that is clearly a celebration of the hanevarian settlement well the thing about defending laws is for code isn't it really praising a king who is willing to uphold parliamentary sovereignty yeah the laws that are issued by parliament so it is absolutely not a celebration of say the divine right of kings that's a nice repost to people who say they don't like god save the king because it implies fealty to an absolute monarch or something like that absolutely doesn't it's a tribute to the constitutional settlement of 1688 to 89 so the king in parliament yeah it's pure wigory that's what it is yeah well not just wigory there is scope there even for those who are more radical than the wigs over the courses than Napoleon it was to feel that yeah we can get behind this song as a kind of properly unifying anthem So obviously royalists can sing it, but so too, on occasion, can radicals who are pushing at the absolute limits of what is viewed by the British establishment as politically acceptable, because they can appeal to the king as defender of their rights actually against Parliament, against the Wiggeg government or the Tory government or whatever. And there is an amazing example of this that happens four years after the Battle of Wadalu, so in 1819. And Godsafe the King is played by a brass band at a great mass meeting that is held in Manchester to demand universal suffrage, and this mass meeting is charged by the local cavalry and people die. And this massacre comes to be called the Peter Lou massacre, because it's held at St Peter's Fields in Manchester. It's one of the great foundational moments in the emergence of a kind of radical tradition in Britain, but there you have Godsafe the King being sung. So it has mass popularity. And when foreign visitors come to Britain, and they hear this song being sung basically everywhere in theatres, in pubs, in the street, whatever, at meetings, none of them have any doubt that they are listening to something novel, that nothing like this really has kind of emerged before. And to quote skills again, from Roman times the world had known the visible national symbol of the flag, henceforth it was denoted audible national symbol of the song. And because I suppose Britain emerges from the Napoleonic Wars with such incredible prestige, there's a feeling that it has triumphed over France with its mass aays. Godsafe the King, or at least the tune of Godsafe the King, not the words, but the tune, comes to be seen as something that aspirational countries other than Britain should buy into. And so they start adopting the melody of Godsafe the King. And in fact, this precedes the Napoleonic Wars. It's something that's been going on throughout the second half of the 18th century. So Holland has done it, Denmark, a host of German states do it, including Prussia, Russia briefly gets in on the act, then after the Napoleonic Wars, Switzerland and Greece. And in all, the melody of Godsafe the King, so not the words, but the melody is ends up being adopted at one point or another by some 20 states. And these states range from Iceland to Hawaii. So it's, I had no idea about this. It's kind of stupefying. Lichtenstein still have it, don't they? Because I remember England playing Lichtenstein and it being an amusing quirk that the same tune was played twice in the two national anthems. Yeah, the England fans boo it when it's the Lichtenstein national anthem. And then they cheer it when it's the English one. I like to proud to be English. Yeah. And actually, I think in Switzerland as well, Godsafe the King provided the tune for the Swiss national anthem up. And I think the 1960s. So to quote Skolz Dominic, we can actually claim that on that Saturday night in September 1745, the British invented national anthems. So hooray for us. Yeah. Hazar for us. Or is it Hazar? Because of course, Britain is not competing in the World Cup. England and Scotland are. And this has certain consequences, which we will be exploring after the break. Exciting. Come back after the break. This episode is brought to you by the Times and the Sunday Times. Thomas another summer of top international football returns. It's truly incredible, isn't it? To think about how much the world has changed between the various tournaments. Looking back to when England hosted back in 1966, everyone in the crowd supporting England were waving union jacks. So what fascinating trends does that illustrate? And I suppose the last time the United States hosted the tournament was in 1994. And the mood in America in the early 1990s, you know, the Cold War was over. Clinton was in the White House. I was there for that. I was in Boston. Really? I mean, that's an aspect to the story that's very rarely reported on your present. So you know what this reminds me of Tom? It reminds me that the future is always uncertain. You never know what's coming. But the facts need not be uncertain. And when the world feels like it's moving too fast, the Times and the Sunday Times empower you to make smarter, more confident decisions. Click or tap the banner now to learn more or visit TheTimes.com. Hello, everybody. Now, as those of you who are good to children will know, here in Britain, on the 21st of June, it's Father's Day, but not just here in Britain. It's also Father's Day on the 21st of June in the United States, in Canada, and in the Republic of Ireland. So those are four countries that are united by dads who love to listen to the rest of history. And that is why we are offering an amazing 25% Father's Day discount on the subscription price to the rest is history club because we are all hard. So treat the Peter the Great in your own life this Father's Day to early access to full series. You can say early access that you get that with a membership. You get bonus episodes. You get ad-free listening. 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Got to ask yourself, you want to play or not. You're the Prime Minister. You've done nothing. We would need to understand the policy context. All of relevant context will be structured as a framework today and disseminated into an operation order or frago. And a frago that says to kill the president of Russia. Yes. New from Goldhanger. Who is going to be able to pull this off? An audio drama journey like no other. Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons. Devised as a technically rigorous geopolitical action forever. We're in a written place. It's strongest. He's the best. Against it's strongest. Don't do it, Duffy. Bear hunt. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Saiga queen. The fascist regime. It made you a moron. Potential H bomb. God save the queen. She ain't a human being. And there's no future in England's dreaming. So apologies everybody. That was Johnny Rotten. John Lyden there singing God save the queen. The sex pistols hit released during the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 1977. Now whether it reached number one or number two is still very controversial among historians, isn't it Tom? It is. The accepted wisdom now is that it actually was number one and then the chart was fixed by the BBC to relegate it to number two. I actually think it's perfectly plausible that it actually finished at number two and that a lot of this is just based on urban legend. However, that's not the issue. This was an attack on the monarchy. It also appeared to be accusing the queen of presiding over a fascist regime and not of not being a human being and no future. Yes. But it's a attack on Jim Callahan's Britain, which is sad. But actually this is a tribute to the power of this song. So you described God save the king in the first half. You said it was no exaggeration to say it was the world's first pop song. But it's a pop song that is still going strong in the 1970s. Yeah. It's the kind of longest running British yearworm, I guess. Right. We've had in our culture. Interesting that they don't copy the tune. They copied the words but not the tune, the sex pistols. I think because it's so famous in Britain that you don't need the tune. You just say God save the queen and it kind of evokes the whole kind of. of majesty and prestige of the national anthem by this point kind of over 200 years old. And in the course of that time, it's picked up a lot of baggage. So even before the Sex Pistols parodied, it has for a long time been sneered at by intellectuals, I think, in particular. By the Biamposa, who you're so keen on. And it's seen by them as basically a song for blimps that it's fasty and it's dusty and it's embarrassing. And the person who comments on this most famously is George Orwell, who in 1941, say one year before skulls published his book on God Save the King, famously wrote, "It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during God Save the King than of stealing from a poor box." I mean, that's still true today. I mean, absolutely, that's true today. Sure. You were talking in the previous episode about the reverence of Americans to show the national anthem. Yeah. There's an obvious contrast there. So you talked about Jimmy Hendrix playing Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock in 1969, and it generating great controversy. The following year, Jimmy Hendrix is in Britain and the art of white playing at the festival there, a few weeks before he dies. And there he plays God Save the Queen in exactly the same way. And it has no reaction whatsoever. Nobody cares at all. And I think to this day, I mean, how could you say, maybe people have a remainer-ish tendency? Might that be there? Yeah. People who enjoy our sister podcast, the rest is politics. Yes. I think people who take the national anthem seriously are seen as kind of quite low status. I mean, if you worry about the color of your passport or your enthusiasm for the national anthem you're seeing, it's a bit kind of below the salt. So there's a classic example of this happened a few months after the Brexit vote in 2016, when the Tory MP for Romford, which is in Essex, you know, not the kind of place where BBC presenters necessarily go very often. This is a guy called Andrew Rosendell and he called for the BBC to end its nightly broadcast by playing God Save the Queen, which is what the BBC had always used to do. And it was being kind of abandoned. And personally, walk presenter of News Night on BBC 2, who I think had not voted for Brexit, saved the say. And she said, we're incredibly happy to oblige. Good night. And then they play the sex pistol God save the Queen. So it's massive. They're hilarious. See, controversially, this will, I don't know, this was a stoundlessness because this is just plain to my image, but it's actually due to what I genuinely think. I think lots of countries actually do end their TV coverage with the national anthem. And I don't actually think it's a weird thing to do. I think it's good for social cohesion. And I don't even think I've been in American high schools where they're just the flag and they do all that kind of stuff. And the standard British thing to do is to sneer at it. And George Orwell, of course, commented on that. But actually, I don't think it is worthy of being sneered at. I think it's actually quite good for people to have collective symbols and a sense of collective loyalty. Anyway, there you go. A fair point, well made. But the fact remains that people in Britain do tend to sneer at the national anthem. And so why is that? Why are people ready to sneer at it here? Then I don't in France or America or whatever. And I get the kind of whole range of possible reasons. I mean, one undoubtedly is they find it boring. Musicians have been complaining about God save the king for a very long time. So Gilbert Gilbert as in Gilbert and Sullivan can claim that it was contemptible dog rule, although actually many, many, I mean, greater composers than Gilbert and Sullivan have actually thought it was rather good. So Bach and Beethoven and Benjamin Britain, they all composed variations on it. That's good enough for me. So yeah, the sense that it's a dirge, as we said, I think that's one reason why people look down on it. Another reason might be that they're Republicans. So the king bit of God save the king. And even during the Revolutionary Wars with France, we said that it was a unifying anthem. But there were those in Britain who identified with the revolution who were not persuaded that to sing God save the king was in some way a progressive thing to do. And in that period, some of the parodies of God save the king were much more savage than anything that the sex festivals came up with. So I'll sing one here. Long live great guillotine who shaves off head so clean off queen or king whose power is so great that every tool of state derailleur death is my tea weight wonderful thing. So I mean Jack Aubrey would not like that would he would not and that takes us back to that last episode about the Star Spangled Banner that anthems are never fixed that people can always reinterpret them and adapt them and put in new words to suit their own political ends and they will do throughout the rest of this series. Yeah. And this is obviously happening throughout this period because all these other countries are coming up with their own words as well. So God save the king, the problem might be with the king or it might be with God, you know, you might be a sexist, you think, you know, we're in a modern age. It's all musty, dusty, fasty, superstition. We don't want to bother with God. Does the whole British Empire thing? God save the king became the anthem of the British Empire. It was the anthem of the Dominions. So South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and all those countries have evolved alternative anthems. And so I think that generates a sense perhaps that God save the king is something antiquated to be got rid of. And then there's the kind of whole trend in historical takes on Great Britain as a kind of early modern state that has never managed to evolve. So this is a thesis that's particularly associated with Tom Nan, Linda Colley, who wrote a famous book called Britain's, kind of essentially arguing for this. The idea that Great Britain was a kind of leader in the early modern period but has never really gone the full course and is still kind of still born as a modern state. And therefore God save the king is kind of representative of this. The fact that we're still seeing something from the 80th century is an embarrassment. So that's another reason. This is such a sort of 1990s. It is very 1990s. Yes, very very 1990s. But then there is a simpler reason we're doing this in honour of the football world cup. And that is that you might feel uncomfortable about seeing God save the king because you are either a Scottish or English player or fan and you are at the 2026 world cup because this I think it does raise issues for both the Scottish and English teams to sing God save the king. National anthems are obviously a really important part of the world cup which is why we're doing the series. We wouldn't be doing it otherwise. I don't think we've said this but I mean people who are listening you've never watched a match in the football world cup. Before every match, the two teams who are playing you know they line up and they sing along to their respective anthems or if you are from Spain or Bosnia and Herzegovina you hum along because those are anthems that don't actually have words. And for most countries this is you know is not controversial. Every country pretty much has a national anthem but there is an issue for Scotland and for England because both of them are constituent parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and that means that they have the same national anthem namely God save the king which is the British national anthem and the same is true of Wales and Northern Ireland and if they had qualified then they would be facing the same problem. And the United Kingdom is unique in having its constituent nations compete separately in this way. So when Spain play you know the Catalonia is not playing when Germany play you don't have Bavaria. Canada is hosting it you don't have Quebec appearing as a kind of separate team in the World Cup. And so people may be wondering how come the home nations are called England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, how come they enjoy this privilege? It's because football's earliest governing bodies are the home nations, the English and Scottish and Welsh and Irish governing bodies long preceded the emergence of FIFA which it ministers the World Cup. FIFA is a parvenue by comparison. So Scotland and England played the earliest international football match as recognised by FIFA in 1872 and that was 32 years before the founding of FIFA and 58 before the first World Cup. And that's why Scotland and England, Wales, Northern Ireland have their own and England actually I don't know I shouldn't leave England now why they have their own distinct identities as teams that do not exist as like UN member states or whatever. Yes and so I think if you're Scottish or English this can be a cause of great patriotic pride. You know we got there first it's our game yeah our governing bodies are much older than FIFA or the World Cup brilliant but I think it does pose an issue on the national anthem front. Of course and so the two nations who are competing in this year's World Cup at Scotland and England from Britain they have come up with differing answers to this kind of pose to this question. Because you said a second ago oh you know when they come out of the World Cup by rights they would be lining up and singing the national anthem of their country which is the United Kingdom or Great Britain or the Northern Ireland which would be God save the King but of course everybody who's listening to this podcast who is Scottish or you know there's anything about football knows that the Scott do not sing that anthem and the thing just to say is that there is nothing kind of inherently offensive about God's save the king to Scots or even to very enthusiastic Scottish nationalists because Charles III rules as king of the United Kingdom by virtue of his descent from the stewards from Merry Queen of Scots and that Stuart line. Yeah. And despite both the Hannah Variants and the Stuart lines, they are on the throne by virtue of their descent from Merry Queen of Scots. And Scottish Nationalist leaders have been perfectly happy to stick up for God's save the king. So Alex Salmond, who was the SMPs leader of Scottish Nationalist Party's leader, who first kind of put Scottish independence on the table as a serious prospect. In 2015, when Jeremy Corbyn, the radically left-wing leader of the Labour Party at the time, and he went to a battle of Britain Memorial Service, and he refused to sing God's save the queen. And Salmond said that this was infantile. Salmond was quite keen on the queen. He'd loved to talk to her about horse racing. They kind of reached her interest. And then in the same month, Nicholas Sturgeon, who succeeded Alex Salmond as leader of the SMP, the Scottish Nationalist Party, she joined the queen in the Duke of Edinburgh, opening a new railway line in Scottish borders. And the band struck up God's save the queen and Nicholas Sturgeon sang it perfectly happily. Sam with gusto. Yes, like with gusto. And the official policy of the SMP remains that should Scotland become an independent country, then they will retain the monarchy. The monarchy would continue with something joining England and Scotland as it had done before the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain in the early 18th century. But that said, there is a very strong Republican strain in the Scottish independence movement. And in fact, in Scotland, generally enthusiasm for the monarchy is noticeably lower than it is say in England. And I think that enthusiasm for God's save, the king in particular, is shadowed in Scotland by a vague sense that, say, Bonnie Prince Charlie was fighting for Scottish independence in 1745. I mean, this is kind of the notion that is fostered by TV shows like Outlander and things like that. Now, it has to be said that this is completely a historical. In Scotland, 1745, the arrival of Bonnie Prince Charlie, this is a Scottish civil war, particularly between the Highlands and the Lowlands, really. But the reason I think a sense, wouldn't you say that? Oh, yeah. A lot of people in Scotland, kind of, Bonnie Prince Charlie is promoted as a Scottish hero of independence, something like Robert Bruce or William Wallace or someone like that, which he absolutely wasn't. I'm surprised Mel Gibson hasn't made a film about it with the English as the villains. I mean, that is the perception of the Battle of Claudon of the whole enterprise that the Scotland versus England, and yet again, the bullying tyrannical English have wiped the floor with the Scots. And as we say, this is completely a historical. The Battle Claudon was, you know, it's a battle fought between two competing visions of Scotland. However, it is true that in that summer of 1745, one of the numerous verses that is being written during this kind of first flush of God save the King Mania, it does name check rebellious Scots and express the hope that they will soon be crushed and Billy Connelly picked up on this. So the great Scottish comedian, he complained about it in a kind of very funny monologue. But just to reiterate, you know, there are loads of lyrics being composed in this period. So there are lyrics being composed that damn George the second, for instance. People on both sides of the divide are coming up with lyrics all the time, so it's not surprising that there are scotophobic lyrics coming from England, for instance. The same is true on the other side that Jack about writers are writing hostile lyrics about the Hanovarians. But I think you could see that all this kind of swirl explains perhaps why God save the King has less purchase in Scotland than it does in England, because the historical reality doesn't really matter when you're dealing with a national anthem, as we saw in our previous episode. What matters is the tug of the heart strings, the emotions that they generate. You were saying the reason that it's not so popular in Scotland is because of the associations with the 45 Clawton, whatever. I think actually the real reason it's not so popular in Scotland is it's associated with England, right? Because English teams sing it, English supporters sing it, and therefore by definition Scottish fans do not want to sing it. Although Scottish fans did sing it, for decades and decades. But I agree. I mean, it would be very odd, I think, for, say, Scotland and England, if they were playing in the World Cup, and who knows, they may meet in the final. Scotland would have to qualify for the first group stage, which they've never, ever done. Well, we will see. We will tell. But I mean, it would seem mad for both sides to stand there and sing absolutely. The same song, the same, I mean, it would be very, very funny. Sing it twice together. And England playing against Scotland is a very, you know, it's the oldest international football rivalry. England were playing Scotland of football right the way up to the mid 80s. Every year, home nations championship, yeah. Then that stops. But in another sport, rugby, England continue to play Scotland every year because there's this contest, the six nations where they were various countries play each other and that includes England and Scotland. And so going into the 90s, I guess Scottish rugby players had a particular incentive to try and come up with a new anthem. And the one that they finally settle on is a song called Flower of Scotland, which had been composed in 1966 by a folk singer called Roy Williamson, who was one half of a folk duo called The Corries. And very like the star-spangled banner, it was inspired by a rousing national victory over a hated foe. But this particular victory in the case of The Corries was one that would be one six and a half centuries before. So it's not like the star-spangled banner inspired by something that the guy who composed it had seen. I mean, this is going way, way back. And the victory that it celebrates is the Battle of Bannockburn, which had been won by the Scottish King, Robert Bruce, over the English King, Edward II in 1314. And for those who haven't heard it, the song begins with a kind of rousing blast that's been lifted from Verde's chorus of the Hebrew slaves. And then you were back to the early 14th century, when the Scots won the greatest victory in their military history over a much larger English invasion force. And it's a celebration of Bruce and his army who had stood against and I quote, "Proud Edward's army and sent him homeward to think again." But you know what, though, I think this is a massive dirge. Farah Scotland is a real dirge. I mean, people say God save the King as a dirge. Farah Scotland is very slow and it's kind of stately and slightly melancholy, I think, in its melody. Do you know who would agree with you is the Secretary of the Scottish FA in I think around 2005? Really? proposed getting rid of it, because by this point, it's been adopted by the Scottish rugby team, and then it ends up being adopted by the Scottish football team. I mean, it has to be said, it does work well against England. If you're Scottish and you're playing against England, it's brilliant. It's slightly less effective, I think, if you're playing rugby against the French, or the Irish, or Welsh, or indeed the Italians, all that stuff about sending proud Edward back home. I think with the bagpipes, it is kind of pretty stirring. That's what Callum, a producer is saying. Callum and Callum's mum cries at it all the time, apparently, so some people like it. And so the Scottish FA, they end up adopting it as Scotland's national anthem, just in time for the 1998 World Cup, in which Scotland had qualified, and as you pointed out, Dominic, do not progress beyond the first round. And 2026 will be the first time since 1998 that Scotland have competed in a World Cup. And so any fans of songs about early 40th century battles out there, tune in and listen to The Flower of Scotland. So who are they? They're playing Brazil, Morocco, and the people of Haiti can look forward to hearing the Scots. Yeah. To hearing about the Battle of Bannockburg. Hearing about the proud Edward. They love, they talk of nothing else in Porto Pryce. Now, the England national team, when they line up, will not be singing a song about, say, England's great victory at Halladon Hill, in the reign of Edward III over the Scots. Should sing about Flodden. Good. Well, I think, I mean, it would be nice to have another early 40th century battle, perhaps. I mean, it would be like our singing, I guess, singing a song about the Battle of Cressy, perhaps. I mean, I'd be so up for that, can't I, Lee? Well, so the England team will be singing God Save the King. It's a national anthem of Britain, and it's been cast as the national anthem of England. And I think the reason that they are happy to do that in a way that the Scots aren't is, I mean, the clue is they're actually in the Sex Pistols song, because in the opening line, it begins with the British national anthem, but then it's England dreaming. And there is a tendency on the part of the English historically to a lied Britain with England. And the Scots and the Welsh and the Royal Irish, they love that. We sometimes do it in this podcast, and in fact, the great historian, A.J. P. Taylor, his book about British history between the wars, Britain between the wars, was called England 1980, the 1945 or whatever it was called. He just absolutely lends into it, and Churchill did that quite often in the Second World War in his rhetoric. Well, Nelson did it as well. England expects every man will do his duty. I mean, that was still the case when England hosted the World Cup in 1966, because people in the crowd were waving not the flag of Saint George, the English flag, but the Union Jack. And now it's much like clear to be the cross of Saint George. And that happened in I think in the 1996 euros when England got to play Scotland. So it was kind of Gaza and his great goal and all of that. The dentist chair celebration. And I think it's not maybe a coincidence that Flower of Scotland was formally adopted as the Scottish anthem by the Scottish FAA the following year. Maybe not a complete coincidence. It had been kind of informally used I think since 1993, but it gets kind of officially enshrined then. It has to be said, there is absolutely no sign that the English FAA are remotely contemplating, changing, got safe for King. They seem perfectly happy with it. But there are people who kind of mutter and say, well, we should have a properly English theme. So I guess that the overwhelming favourite would be Jerusalem. But you know what? In the 70s, so in the 70s when Don Revy was the England manager, modernising England manager, there was a brief period. I think we're talking about roughly between 1974 and 1976 when they adopted land of hope and glory, which is still a very British controversial. It was controversial. Lots of people didn't like it and they said, bring back the old anthem. Well, and another one is I've out of the my country, which again is about Britain. I think the appeal of Jerusalem is that is very specifically about England. So for people who don't know, it was a poem written by William Blake, the great romantic poet. So if you love a romantic poem, I mean, it takes your box. It refers to England as a green and pleasant land. So that's like a lots of national anthems, which celebrate the natural beauty of the country. Nice topographical description. People love that in an anthem. I think the music is great. So written by Sir Hubert Perry and orchestrated by Olga. Actually, George the Fifth Dominic. So one of your great heroes, he said he much preferred it to God save the King. So I think there's maybe a monarchist case for it. Maybe Blake, of course, was a revolutionary. You know, he got had up for a seditious criticism of the monarchy. So it would appeal to anti-monicists as well. And it has this famous line, bring me my chariot of fire. So it has a kind of sporting link because chariot of fire gave the name to the the great, you know, that film about the Olympics, whatever it was. Did you just say whatever it was? Oh, whatever it was. Something about the Olympics. And also it's kind of about Jesus coming to England and coming to Glastonbury specifically. So it would appeal to fans of mute festivals. So I think it does take a lot of boxes. And also I have to say it is already the official hymn of a great English national sport, namely cricket. I think it's got a bit of a class orientation Jerusalem there, doesn't it? Because it's a very, very public school chapel hymn. I mean, for example, before we started Broadcasting, Tabby was saying that I think she used to sing it when she was at Stowe. So, you know, I wonder whether that might attain it for some listeners. Yeah, possibly. But I'm sure you could kind of soup it up. Maybe. Become the people's anthem. Right. Change the lyrics, exactly. Yeah, I played at Glastonbury. I mean, who knows? I'm still in the God's say, the King camp, frankly. I'm Agnostic. Okay, as always, Tom. Yeah, as always. He played your traditional card. Yeah, I have. So that is the National Anthem of England and Scotland. Wow. And next dominate we've got Germany, haven't we? England's old rivals at football. Will we talk about all kinds of people, actually? We'll be talking about the Kaiser. He'll be back. Will we talk about Horst Vessel? Will we the Nazi martyr? Maybe a little, a little mention Hitler. A little mention of Hitler. Yeah, the East Germans, Conrad Addernauer. So it's actually an unbelievably interesting story, the story of the German national anthem. Or should I say anthems? Yeah, wonderful. Looking forward to that, Dominic. And then the Dutch. So yeah, then we've got the Dutch. Then we've got Brazil and then we have South Africa. Okay. So if people want to listen to those episodes now, can they? Is there any way they can do so? Is there any mechanism? Well, there is Dominic. And this will come as news to people. If you want to hear all of those episodes in one go and you're not already a member of the rest of the History Club, then you can go to the rest ishistory.com, sign up there and you get the whole lot. Plus a whole load of supplementary benefits. And the only way to get those benefits is to sign up on that website. Am I right? Yes, that is correct. Okay, brilliant. We're going to go out on Jerusalem, the perhaps future English national anthem. Bye bye. Bye bye. And still the city is a time. One of the new lands found in the field. And what's the whole of the year? The year of the morning and the last of the year. And to the countenance tonight, shine for the more of the year. And what's the last and the year? Hello everyone. It's Tom Holland here. I am with the great Helen Kaster. We're talking about the she wolves, the great queens of medieval England. We've already done two today. It's the third Isabella of France, who marries Edward the second, a very problematic husband. It has to be said. And she really does go the full she wolf on him. And here is a clip from that episode. And what about Edward the second, the anointed king of England? That's a bigger problem isn't it? It's a much bigger problem. He is the anointed king. He's now a prisoner. If they know one thing about Edward is that you can't trust his word. They can't put him back on the throne, not even if he's promising to be good. But what are you going to do? How do you move a king? They do it the best way they know how, which is they depose him. They list all his many crimes and faults in Parliament. And they say he has attacked his own people. And therefore he must no longer be king. They also get into advocate. You need belt and braces if you possibly can. And they declare that his young son Edward the third is now king and he is crowned in February 1327. But the problem now is you have an ex king in prison in custody. And by September of 1327, already three plots to free him have been discovered and have been foiled. This isn't a tenable situation. Something has to be done. Edward by this point is embarked castle by Bristol. And he conveniently dies. And what are the theories on how he dies, Helen? Well, there are many theories, including a theory that he didn't die at all and was in fact spirited away to become a hermit in Germany. I don't buy that. As far as I can see from all the available evidence on the night of the 21st of September 1327, Edward dies conveniently without explanation in his prison cell. The red hot poker. Well, what we know is this story gets told and of course it gets told because it encapsulates the whole story in one moment. What happens to the red hot poker? You're going to make me say a red hot poker thrust into his anus to burn his intestines from the inside out. And the story goes that, of course, this is an excellent way to kill a king because it leaves the outside of his body untouched so his body can be displayed. But also, of course, symbolically this is harkening back to his ill-fated and deeply unwise relationship with Pierce-Gaviston. How early do these stories appear? I mean, is it possible that this is historically accurate? I can't prove that it isn't and they do appear quite early. I think generally on the rest of history, if there's a good story. Let's go with it. You know, and it's not completely implausible, we'll go with it. So let's say that he does, he has a red hot poker, shoved up his ass. And that's the end of "Edit of the Second." Thanks very much for listening. And if you'd like to hear the first two episodes, then go to therestishistory.com. Sign up there, but I can't believe you haven't already done that. Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting mist from Mabelie, New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible, all-day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Just plump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new, grippy setting mist from Mabelie, New York. Maybe it's Mabelie!