| Poundswick was born in an era when the
National Anthem was a regular feature of British life.
The BBC played it every evening at the closedown of each
of its networks, it was played (and often sung) at the
end of performances in cinemas and theatres and it was
sung regularly at school events. The people of our Island
Nation were proud to call themselves British Citizens,
our Kingdom really was United and
support for the monarchy and British Institutions was
almost universal. Sadly, those days have all but gone and
one shudders at the possible future consequences of our
ever-increasing willingness to divest ourselves of our
Britishness, or at least to allow it to be taken from us
without demur. Given that singing
the National Anthem was a feature of life at Poundswick,
I thought it appropriate to include a few notes about it
and also to reproduce all five verses of the words, which
you rarely see written down these days.
'God Save The King' was a patriotic
song first publicly performed in London in 1745, but it
was not until the beginning of the nineteenth century
that it became our official National Anthem. The words
and tune are anonymous and probably date back to the
seventeenth century.
In September 1745 the 'Young Pretender' to the British
Throne, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, defeated the army
of King George II at Prestonpans, near Edinburgh. In a
fit of patriotic fervour after news of Prestonpans had
reached London, the leader of the band at the Theatre
Royal, Drury Lane, arranged for 'God Save The King' to be
sung after that evening's performance. It was a
tremendous success and was repeated nightly thereafter.
This practice soon spread to other theatres, and the
custom of greeting the Monarch with the song as he or she
entered a place of public entertainment was thus
established.
There is no authorised version of the National Anthem
because the words are a matter of tradition. The words
below are those that have gradually become established
since 1745. On official occasions, only the first verse
is usually sung:
God save our gracious Queen!
Long live our noble Queen!
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the Queen.
There are, however, four additional
verses, as below:
O Lord our God arise
Scatter her enemies
And make them fall.
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
Oh, save us all!
Thy choicest gifts in store
On her be pleased to pour,
Long may she reign.
May she defend our laws,
And ever give us cause,
To sing with heart and voice,
God save the Queen!
Not in this land alone,
But be God's mercies known,
From shore to shore!
Lord make the nations see,
That men should brothers be,
And form one family,
The wide world over.
From every latent foe,
From the assassin's blow,
God save the Queen!
O'er her thine arm extend,
For Britain's sake defend,
Our mother, prince and friend,
God save the Queen!
I know of two arrangements of the
National Anthem that deliver more than just the first
verse: the arrangement by Benjamin Britten offers a very
muted first verse followed by a rousing verse three (I
first heard this when Mr. Welton played it to us in a
Music lesson in about 1962; I was so moved by it that I
spent precious pocket money on a copy of the record,
which I still have) and the brilliant arrangement by Sir
Arthur Bliss offers verses 1, 2 and 3. Does anyone know
of an arrangement with all five verses?
This link takes you to a page where you can download an
MP3 file (960k, so it takes a few minutes to download) of
the "official" Golden Jubilee version (verses 1
and 3).
 |
Whilst in
patriotic mood, here's a little ditty about the
Union Jack. I came across it engraved in slate
outside the Honister slate quarry in Cumbria,
which is clearly managed by a local who doesn't
mind wearing his patriotism on his sleeve: |
Unfurl our flag -
red, white and blue -
and greet it with your smile.
The blue is for the sea we view
around our sceptred isle;
the sea o'er which we've paid our due
in storm and wartime trial.
Raise up our flag -
blue, red and white -
salute it with respect.
The white is for the purest light
that freedom can effect
and for the lasting love of right
our citizens expect.
Fly high our flag -
white, blue and red -
for everyone to see.
The red is for the blood we shed
to keep our country free
and for our brave forebears who bled
in every century.
Our flag is known
the whole world through;
our Union Jack so dear.
We don't want stars of gold on blue
on any flagpoles here!
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