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- [00:01]
Dominic Sandbrook
This episode is brought to you by Lloyds Business and Commercial Banking.
- [00:06]
Tom Holland
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 effectively 100%.
- [00:33]
Dominic Sandbrook
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 Lloyds come in. Because they're here to help make that change much simpler for you with a useful HMRC recognized accounting tool that will help you stay in line with all the Making Tax Digital requirements.
- [00:59]
Tom Holland
And the brilliant thing about this is that it is free for Lloyds business account customers. So when it is time to digitize your income tax, you can bank on Lloyds. Search Lloyds Business accounts to find out more.
- [01:17]
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- [02:18]
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- [02:57]
Dominic Sandbrook
Ra. 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 will go down in history, seeing Thomas Tuchel rewarded with a knighthood, Harry Kane hat trick in 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 top contender, but they're the most interesting. Now, obviously, Tom, we were always going to do God Save the King 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, a 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'll be talking a lot about the politics, 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. They say it's a dirge.
- [04:45]
Tom Holland
A dirge.
- [04:46]
Dominic Sandbrook
It's.
- [04:47]
Tom Holland
I think it's a legal requirement to say that it is a dirge.
- [04:50]
Dominic Sandbrook
I don't think it is a dirge, but there you go.
- [04:52]
Tom Holland
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
- [05:00]
Dominic Sandbrook
of operatic power, strutting, bombastic.
- [05:04]
Tom Holland
So we've done two national anthems before. This one was the previous one, the Star Spangled Banner.
- [05:10]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [05:11]
Tom Holland
Burning the White House, attacking Baltimore, all of that. But before that, as part of our French Revolution series, we did The Marseillaise, episode 507, 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 Marseillaise, 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.
- [06:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
But the way that 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 yeah, 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 Burkes of this world come to construct a kind of ideological defence of it and to actually see monarchy not just as something they've inherited, but as an intrinsically good and worthwhile thing in itself.
- [07:27]
Tom Holland
Or the Jack Aubreys 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. They're anti monarchy, they're 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 idle formula. I mean, it is a really kind of desperately heartfelt prayer, I think. Would you agree with that?
- [08:54]
Dominic Sandbrook
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.
- [09:02]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [09:03]
Dominic Sandbrook
That Britain is defending God's cause against these atheistical Frenchmen are their corrupt, usurping tyrant, the Corsican monster. So, yeah, absolutely. I think people take it really seriously. And the Jack Aubrey character is. Well, or Nelson. I mean, they're brilliant examples of that.
- [09:19]
Tom Holland
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, Napoleonic wars, 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 at 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 Marseillaise is officially enshrined, France's champ national. 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 Marseillaise is retrospectively titled by the French, a national hymn rather than a national song.
- [10:49]
Dominic Sandbrook
Can I ask a question about you say, you know, 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.
- [11:01]
Tom Holland
Yeah, it's increasingly called an anthem. It's something that people sing as a Christian as well as a kind of patriotic duty.
- [11:09]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, doesn't that sort of fit the idea of the. That 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 labor, like the bonkers experiments of the United States and France?
- [11:26]
Tom Holland
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, you know, The Marseillaise 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 the 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, has kept its monarchy and its constitution is unwritten. And this is a cause of great pride to the British. They don't need kind of new fangled constitutions because their constitution stretches back over the centuries, ultimately all the way back to the Anglo sax. 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 Marseillaise, unlike the Star Spangled Banner, was not written in response to a specific occasion. So, you know, 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.
- [13:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
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?
- [13:14]
Tom Holland
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 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 that it's, you know, 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 the great 17th century composer, probably the greatest English composer. I mean, that's not saying much, I guess.
- [13:52]
Dominic Sandbrook
Dido and Aeneas.
- [13:54]
Tom Holland
Dido, Aeneas, the first great opera written in English. I mean, you know, 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. There's another very popular candidate who's earlier than Pazel, a century earlier. So in the 16th century, and this was a Keyboard virtuoso who had the unimprovable name of John Bull.
- [14:25]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, he couldn't make this up again.
- [14:27]
Tom Holland
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. It's the figure of Britain, isn't it?
- [14:46]
Dominic Sandbrook
It is indeed.
- [14:47]
Tom Holland
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 great golden age of. Of England. And in 1937, a Welshman.
- [15:01]
Dominic Sandbrook
Great to have a Welshman on the show.
- [15:02]
Tom Holland
Yeah, great to have a Welshman, a musicologist called Leigh Henry. He proposed that God, say 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.
- [15:19]
Dominic Sandbrook
Oh, I love that.
- [15:20]
Tom Holland
Well, sadly, there is absolutely zero evidence for this and it has to be said that Leigh Henry is a faintly 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.
- [15:40]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right. He's no stranger to contrivances.
- [15:42]
Tom Holland
No, he was also bigamist, 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 Leigh Henry isn't entirely trustworthy as a musicologist.
- [16:00]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. Do you have another musicologist in the wings, do you? Fortunately, perhaps with very different ideological leanings. Who may be able to resolve this murky question for us?
- [16:10]
Tom Holland
I do, Dominic. And this is a guy called Percy A. Scholes. 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 would he would be served with. So he's incredibly thin and spindly.
- [16:35]
Dominic Sandbrook
He would be unwelcomer to get together with their producers at Wilton's in Mayfair.
- [16:38]
Tom Holland
Yes, he would. He absolutely would. On the other hand, he is 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. And he definitely loved Britain as well.
- [16:56]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, he ticks some boxes, but not others. Yeah, yeah, we wouldn't have lunch together, that's for sure.
- [17:01]
Tom Holland
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.
- [17:12]
Dominic Sandbrook
The kind of.
- [17:13]
Tom Holland
The mood of national beleaguerment, 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 like 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 gaining credence by mere force of repetition.
- [17:44]
Dominic Sandbrook
Okay, so what does he think?
- [17:46]
Tom Holland
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 Stuart, 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 VII of Scotland, who was also James II of England. And back in 1688, in what 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.
- [18:52]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [18:52]
Tom Holland
And Bonnie Prince Charlie's aim in landing in the Highlands was to claim the British throne back for the Stuarts, the. The line of James II for his father, the old pretender. And to achieve this, Bonnie Prince Charlie needs to claim the throne back for the Stuarts from the dynasty that has replaced the Stuarts. And this is the House of Hanover. And specifically, it is one of the many Georges that reign in the 18th century. And this is George II. George II 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 Stuarts are Catholic. And so, at stake, in the autumn of 1740, 5, 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 Stuarts 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 Stuarts reaching back all the way into the Middle Ages. And essentially, you may not like their. Their religion, you may not like their absolutist 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.
- [20:28]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, It's a Tory tradition, Tory traditions.
- [20:30]
Tom Holland
James Boswell as well, his biographer. 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. 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.
- [21:26]
Dominic Sandbrook
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 Hanoveria model, what you might call the Whig 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.
- [21:51]
Tom Holland
Yes. Where actually he does tremendously well, because the clans there kind of flock to his. His cause and 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 are Kind of runs on banks. There are loads of caricatures showing terrifying Scotsmen 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 Scholes, in his book on God Save the King demonstrated was when God saved 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 its debut as a kind of great national song at a theatre, Dominic, where we have done a show.
- [23:18]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, no less. So one of my very favourite theatres. And we can date this precisely, can't we, to. Is it September, September 1745.
- [23:28]
Tom Holland
28th of September 1745. And an announcement appeared in the General Advertiser, and I will read it. We hear Mr. Lacy, master of His Majesty's Company of Comedians at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, has applied for leave to raise 200 men in defence 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 defence of George ii. 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 it 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 chord with repeated huzzahs. We love a hussar. Sufficiently denoted in how just an abhorrence they hold the arbitrary schemes of our invidious enemies and detest the despotic attempts of papal 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 Stuarts 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 are singing this incredibly patriotic song. And obviously, if you are a fan of the Hanoverian settlement, as everyone is in this theater, I mean, this is absolute catnip, you couldn't be happier about it.
- [25:17]
Dominic Sandbrook
You know what, we've got a lot of listeners who are actors themselves. So the actor Samuel west is a listener to this. And I would pay good money to see him standing on stage belting out God Save the King, having recruited all his mates to join in to fight for the King against Britain's enemies. I would pay enormous sums of money to see him doing that.
- [25:38]
Tom Holland
And they keep doing this night after night, 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 Royal in Drury Lane, which is the theatre in Covent 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 have reports. And by the end of the following year, so by which point Bonnie Prince Charlie has launched his abortive invasion of England and he's turned back at Derby, he's been defeated at the Battle of Culloden. 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.
- [26:32]
Dominic Sandbrook
The first pop song.
- [26:33]
Tom Holland
It is sung everywhere in a way that I think songs had not previously been.
- [26:38]
Dominic Sandbrook
Okay.
- [26:38]
Tom Holland
It is easily the most effective piece of propaganda in the whole story of the Jacobite invasion. You know, it's a massive kind of popular triumph of pro Hanoverian sentiment. And so obviously George II thinks this is great. I'm suddenly the star of a pop song. I mean, what's not to like?
- [26:55]
Dominic Sandbrook
Who wouldn't like that? But is there perhaps a twist?
- [26:58]
Tom Holland
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 28 September 1745, when it is sung on the stage of Theatre Royal, that may have been when God Saves the King first hits the West End. But as Scholes 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 Scholes is very contemptuous of the idea that a single composer, whether it's John Bull or whether it's Henry Bussell or whether it's anyone who you can put a name to, that anyone named, had written the melody. And his argument is that it emerges communally and that its 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.
- [27:52]
Dominic Sandbrook
Because it's organic.
- [27:54]
Tom Holland
It's organic. It's kind of risen up from the hearts of the people.
- [27:58]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [27:59]
Tom Holland
So that's the tune. What about the words? This is where the irony really kicks in, because Skoll, in his book, quotes a letter that was written on 10 October 1745 to David Garrick, the greatest actor of the day. And in this letter, surprise is expressed by the writer of the letter, 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 II. King James II is the Catholic absolutism grandfather of Bonnie Prince Charlie. So he is the kind of uber Jacobite. Scholes quotes other contemporary letters, other contemporary sources, and these are all making the same claim that God Saves the King had not originally been a Hanoverian song, it had been a Jacobite song. And he has this brilliant phrase. The British national anthem is a turncoat. It's gone from being a Jacobite anthem to being a Hanoverian anthem.
- [29:01]
Dominic Sandbrook
So absolute scenes, anthems are always malleable. So all through these six episodes, we'll be doing stories about anthems that are rewritten or reinterpreted. We've already had examples when we did the Star Spangled Banner, but, I mean, one of the things about God Save the King is. I mean, we've already rewritten it ourselves in our own lifetimes because we switched from God Save the Queen to God Save the King, didn't we?
- [29:22]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [29:22]
Dominic Sandbrook
Without even really thinking about it. It's not like somebody told us to do it, it just was the natural thing to do. So because there's no. Am I right in saying there's no approved state sanctioned text, There is no authorized version.
- [29:35]
Tom Holland
So you will find a version on, say, the royal family's website, but it's not kind of legally prescribed in the way that the Marseillaise is. We heard the legislation required to inscribe Star Spangled Banner, 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 newspaper report when it was first sung on the stage of Drury 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 Stuart King as well as the Hanoverian king. Actually, if you're not naming the king, if you're not specifying who the king is, it's pretty easy to appropriate it on both sides. That said, what becomes the second verse is clearly, I think, written by Hanoverian 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 Hanoverian settlement.
- [30:43]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, the thing about defending laws is code, isn't it, really?
- [30:46]
Tom Holland
Praising a king who is willing to uphold parliamentary sovereignty.
- [30:51]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [30:51]
Tom Holland
The laws that are issued by Parliament. So it is absolutely not a celebration of, say, the divine right of kings.
- [30:57]
Dominic Sandbrook
That's a nice riposte to people who say they don't like God Save the King because it implies fealty to an absolute monarch or something like that. It absolutely doesn't. It's a tribute to the constitutional settlement of 1688. 89. So the king in Parliament. Yeah, it's a. It's pure wiggery, that's what it is.
- [31:16]
Tom Holland
Yeah. Well, not just wiggery. There is scope there, even for those who are more radical than the Whigs over the course of the Napoleonic wars, 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 Whiggish government or the Tory government or whatever. And there is an amazing example of this that happens four years after the Battle of Waterloo, so in 1819, and God save 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 Peterloo 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 God Save 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 theaters, 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 Scholes again from Roman times, the world had known the visible national symbol of the flag. Henceforth, it was to know the 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 Marseillaise, God Save the King. Or at least the tune of God Save the King. Not the words, but the tune comes to be seen as something that aspirational countries other than Britain should be buy into.
- [33:18]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [33:20]
Tom Holland
And so they start adopting the melody of God Save 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 Napoleonic Wars, Switzerland and Greece. And in all, the melody of God Save the King. So not the words, but the melody 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. I had no idea about this. It's kind of stupefying.
- [33:59]
Dominic Sandbrook
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.
- [34:08]
Tom Holland
Yeah. And England fans boo it when it's the Lichtenstein national anthem and then they cheer it when it's the English one. Ah.
- [34:14]
Dominic Sandbrook
Makes you proud to be English.
- [34:15]
Tom Holland
Yeah. And actually, I think in Switzerland as well, God Save the King provided the tune for the Swiss national anthem up until, I think, the 1960s. So to quote Scholes, Dominic. Yeah, we can actually claim that on that Saturday night in September 1745, the British invented national anthems. So hooray for us.
- [34:36]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. Huzzah for us.
- [34:37]
Tom Holland
Or is it Hussar? 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.
- [34:54]
Dominic Sandbrook
Exciting. Come back after the break. This episode is brought to you by the Times and the Sunday Times. Tom. As another summer of top international football returns in. It's truly incredible, isn't it, to think about how much the world has changed between the various tournaments.
- [35:15]
Tom Holland
Looking back to when England Hosted back in 1966, everyone in the crowd supporting England were waving Union Jacks. So, yeah. What fascinating trends does that illustrate?
- [35:26]
Dominic Sandbrook
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.
- [35:35]
Tom Holland
I was there for that. I was in Boston.
- [35:38]
Dominic Sandbrook
Really. I mean, that's an aspect of the story that's very rarely reported on your presence. 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.
- [36:00]
Tom Holland
Click or tap the banner now to learn more or visit thetimes.com. Hello everybody. Now, as those of you who are good children will know, here In Britain, on the 21st of June, it's Father's Day.
- [36:20]
Dominic Sandbrook
But not just here in Britain, it's also Father's Day on 21 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 Is History.
- [36:36]
Tom Holland
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 heart.
- [36:52]
Dominic Sandbrook
So treat the Peter the Great in your own life this Father's Day to early access to full series. You get, say, early access that you get that with a membership, you get bonus episodes, you get ad free listening, you get access to tickets for live shows. Basically, you get an entire host of supplementary benefits. And that, I think, is what a lot of patriarchs want, isn't it?
- [37:15]
Tom Holland
It absolutely is. Because I think nothing says Happy Father's Day quite like the chance to listen to six solid hours ad free about the first World War.
- [37:28]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, that's what most fathers want. So head to therestishistory.com and click on the word gifts. And that gift membership of our much loved Rest Is History Club will land straight in your father's inbox on Father's Day itself.
- [37:48]
Tom Holland
So if you want to give the best Father's Day gift there's ever been in history, ever, and we say this as the presenters of the Rest Is History, you know what to do. This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. It's easy to ditch overpriced wireless with Mint Mobile.
- [38:12]
Dominic Sandbrook
Sign up online@mintmobile.com history and get three months of premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month. $45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on a limited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details.
- [38:44]
Tom Holland
God save the 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
- [38:56]
Dominic Sandbrook
England's dreaming so apologies, everybody. That was Johnny Rotten John Lydon 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. Controversial among historians, isn't it, Tom?
- [39:18]
Tom Holland
It is.
- [39:18]
Dominic Sandbrook
The accepted wisdom now is that it actually was number one and then was. 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, this. That's not the issue. This was an attack on the monarchy. So it appeared to be accusing the Queen of presiding over a fascist regime, of not being a human being and no future. Yes. But it's 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. Yeah, but it's a pop song that is still going strong in the 1970s.
- [40:06]
Tom Holland
Yeah, it's the kind of longest running British earworm, I guess.
- [40:09]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right.
- [40:10]
Tom Holland
That we've had in our culture.
- [40:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
Interesting that they don't copy the tune. They copied the words, but not the tune.
- [40:15]
Tom Holland
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 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 parody it.
- [40:37]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [40:38]
Tom Holland
It has for a long time been snared at by intellectuals, I think in
- [40:43]
Dominic Sandbrook
particular by the Bien Pont Bien Ponson,
- [40:46]
Tom Holland
who you're so keen on. And it's seen by them as basically a song for blimps, that it's fusty and it's dusty and it's embarrassing. And the person who comments on this most famously is George Orwell, who in 1941, so one year before Scholes published his book on God Save the King, famously wrote, it is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that. 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.
- [41:20]
Dominic Sandbrook
And that's still true today? I mean, absolutely, that's true today, sure.
- [41:23]
Tom Holland
You were talking in the previous episode about the reverence that Americans show the national anthem. Yeah, there's an obvious contrast there. So you talked about Jimi Hendrix playing Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock in 1969, and it generating great controversy the following year. Jimi Hendrix is in Britain on the Isle of Wight, 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.
- [41:52]
Dominic Sandbrook
It's interesting, isn't it?
- [41:53]
Tom Holland
Nobody cares at all. And I think to this day. I mean, how could you sum up? Maybe people have a remainer Ish tendency. Might that be the.
- [42:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, people who enjoy our sister podcast. The rest is politics.
- [42:06]
Tom Holland
Yes. I think people who take the national anthem seriously are seen as kind of quite low status. I mean. Yeah, you know, if you worry about the color of your passport or your enthusiast for the national anthem, you're seen as. 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, so, you know, not the kind of place where BBC presenters necessarily go very often. This is a guy called Andrew Rossendale 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.
- [42:46]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yes.
- [42:46]
Tom Holland
And it being kind of abandoned. And Kirsty Walk, presenter of Newsnight on BBC2, who I think had not voted for Brexit. Safe to say she said, we're incredibly happy to oblige. Good night. And then they play the Sex Pistols, God Save the Queen. So it's massive bands.
- [43:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
Hilarious. See, controversially, this will. I don't think this will astound listeners because this is just plain to my image, but it's actually 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 pledge to the flag and they do all that kind of stuff and that the standard British thing to do is to sneer at it. The. 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.
- [43:38]
Tom Holland
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 than, I don't know, 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, as in Gilbert and Sullivan, complained that it was contemptible doggerel. 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 Britten, they all composed variations on it.
- [44:17]
Dominic Sandbrook
That's good enough for me.
- [44:18]
Tom Holland
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 Pistols came up with. So I'll sing one here. Long live great Gillette who shaves off head so clean Of Queen or King whose power is so great that every tool of state dreadeth his mighty weight. Wonderful thing. So, I mean, Jack Aubrey would not like that, would he? He would not.
- [45:08]
Dominic Sandbrook
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.
- [45:19]
Tom Holland
And they.
- [45:19]
Dominic Sandbrook
And they will do throughout the rest of this series.
- [45:20]
Tom Holland
Yeah. And this is obviously happening throughout this period because all these other countries are coming up with their own words as well. Yeah. So God Save the King. The problem might be with the King or it might be with God. You know, you might be a secularist. You think, you know, we're in a modern age, it's all musty, dusty, fusty 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 of Australia, of New Zealand, of 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. A 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. With Tom Nairn, Linda Colley, who wrote a famous book called Britons, 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. Is 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 singing something from the 18th century is an embarrassment. So that's another reason this is such
- [46:45]
Dominic Sandbrook
a sort of 1990s landscape.
- [46:47]
Tom Holland
It is very 19 take, 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 singing 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 the 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 have never watched a match in the Football World cup. Before every match, the two teams who are playing, they line up and they sing along to their respective anthems or. Or if you are from Spain or Bosnia and Herzegovina, you hum along, because those are anthems that don't actually have any 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, 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, well, 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 administers the World Cup. FIFA is a parvenu by comparison. So Scotland and England played the earliest international football match as recognized by FIFA in 1872, and that was 32 years before the founding of FIFA and 58 before the first World Cup.
- [49:15]
Dominic Sandbrook
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 out. Why? They have their own distinct identities as teams that do not exist as like UN member states or whatever.
- [49:30]
Tom Holland
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. 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, Scotland and England from Britain, they have come up with differing answers to this kind of poser to this question.
- [50:00]
Dominic Sandbrook
Because you said a second ago, oh, you know, when they come out at the World cup, by rights, they would be lining up and singing the national anthem of their country, which is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which would be God Save the King. But of course, everybody who's listened to this podcast who is Scottish or who knows anything about football knows that the Scots do not sing that anthem.
- [50:19]
Tom Holland
And the thing just to say is that there is nothing kind of inherently offensive about God 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 Stuarts, from Mary Queen of Scots and that Stuart line, despite both the Hanoverians and the Stuart lines, they are on the throne by virtue of their descent from Mary, Queen of Scots. And Scottish nationalist leaders have been perfectly happy to stick up for God Save the King. So Alex Salmond, who was the SNP's leader, 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 Save the Queen. And Salmond said that this was infantile, Salmond was quite keen on the Queen. He loved to talk to her about horse racing, the kind of mutual interest. And then in the same month, Nicola Sturgeon, who succeeded Alex Salmond as leader of the snp, the Scottish Nationalist Party, she joined the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, opening a new railway line in the Scottish Borders. And the band struck up God Save the Queen. And Nicola Sturgeon sung it perfectly, happily sang with gusto. Yeah, sang it with gusto. And the official policy of the S and P remains that should Scotland become an independent country, then they will retain the monarchy. The monarchy would continue as 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. Yeah, And I think that enthusiasm for God 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. Right. Now, it has to be said that this is completely ahistorical in Scotland. 1745, the arrival of Bonnie Prince Charlie. This is a Scottish civil war, particularly between the Highlands and the Lowlands, really. But there is, I think, a sense. Wouldn't you say that.
- [53:00]
Dominic Sandbrook
Oh, yeah.
- [53:01]
Tom Holland
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.
- [53:12]
Dominic Sandbrook
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 Culloden, of the whole enterprise, that it's Scotland versus England. And yet again, the bullying, tyrannical English have wiped the floor with the Scots.
- [53:24]
Tom Holland
And as we say, this is completely ahistorical. The Battle of Culloden was. You know, it's. 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 Connolly 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 ii, 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 Jacobite writers are writing hostile lyrics about the Hanoverians. 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 heartstrings, the emotions that they generate.
- [54:40]
Dominic Sandbrook
You were saying the reason that it's not so popular in Scotland is because of the associations with the 45 colonies.
- [54:47]
Tom Holland
Whatever.
- [54:47]
Dominic Sandbrook
I think actually the real reason it's not so popular in Scotland is it's associated with England.
- [54:54]
Tom Holland
Right.
- [54:54]
Dominic Sandbrook
Because English teams sing it, English supporters sing it, and therefore, by definition, Scottish fans do not want to sing it.
- [55:02]
Tom Holland
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,
- [55:18]
Dominic Sandbrook
Scotland would have to qualify from the first group stage, which they've never, ever done.
- [55:22]
Tom Holland
Well, we will see, time 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.
- [55:31]
Dominic Sandbrook
Sing it twice together.
- [55:33]
Tom Holland
And England playing against Scotland is a very. You know, it's the oldest international football rivalry. Yeah, England were playing Scotland to football right the way up to the mid-80s. Yeah.
- [55:41]
Dominic Sandbrook
Every year, home nations championship. Yeah.
- [55:43]
Tom Holland
Then that stops. But in another sport, rugby, England continue to play Scotland every. Every year because there's this contest, the six nations, where they all 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 Coreys. 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 Coreys, was one that had been won 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 Verdi'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.
- [57:26]
Dominic Sandbrook
But you know what, though? I think this is a massive dirge. Flower of Scotland is a real dirge. I mean, people say God save the King is a dirge. Flower of Scotland is very slow and it's kind of stately and slightly melancholy, I think, in its melody.
- [57:40]
Tom Holland
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. Slightly less effective, I think, if you're playing rugby against the French or the Irish or the Welsh or. Or indeed the Italians. All that stuff about sending proud Edward back home. Yeah, I think with the bagpipes, it is kind of pretty stirring.
- [58:14]
Dominic Sandbrook
That's what Callum, our producer, is saying. Callum. And Callum's mum cries at it all the time, apparently. So some people like it.
- [58:21]
Tom Holland
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 14th century battles out there, you know, tune in and listen to the flower of Scotland. So who are they?
- [58:53]
Dominic Sandbrook
They're playing Brazil, Morocco, and the people of Haiti can look forward to hearing the Scottish hearing about the Battle of
- [59:02]
Tom Holland
Bannockburg, hearing about the proud Edward they love.
- [59:04]
Dominic Sandbrook
They talk of nothing else in Port au Prince.
- [59:07]
Tom Holland
Now, the England national team, when they line up, will not be singing a song about, say, England's great victory at Halidon Hill in the reign of Edward iii over.
- [59:17]
Dominic Sandbrook
The Scots should sing About Flodden, we could do.
- [59:21]
Tom Holland
Well, I think. I mean, it would be nice to have another early 14th century battle, perhaps. I mean, it would be like us, I guess, singing a song about the Battle of Crecy, perhaps.
- [59:30]
Dominic Sandbrook
I mean, I'd be so up for that, I can't tell you.
- [59:32]
Tom Holland
Well, so the England team will be singing God Save the King. It's the 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 there 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 allied Britain with England and the Scots and the Welsh and the Nora Irish, they. They love that.
- [60:03]
Dominic Sandbrook
We sometimes do it on 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 1918-1945, or whatever it was called. He just absolutely lent into it. And Churchill did that quite often in the Second World War in his rhetoric.
- [60:21]
Tom Holland
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 St. George, the English flag, but the Union Jack. And now it's much likelier to be the Cross of St. 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.
- [60:50]
Dominic Sandbrook
Dentist chair celebration.
- [60:51]
Tom Holland
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 FA the following year. Maybe not 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 FA are remotely contemplating changing God Save the 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 favorite would be Jerusalem.
- [61:31]
Dominic Sandbrook
But you know What? In the 70s. So in the 70s, when Don Revie was the England manager, modernizing England manager, there was a brief period, I think we're talking about roughly between 1974 and 1976, when they adopted Land of Hope
- [61:47]
Tom Holland
and Glory, which is Still a very British.
- [61:51]
Dominic Sandbrook
Controversial. It was controversial. Lots of people didn't like it and they said, bring back the old anthem.
- [61:56]
Tom Holland
Well, and another one is I Vow to Thee, My country, which, again, is about Britain. I think the appeal of Jerusalem is it 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, ticks your box. It refers to England as a green and pleasant land. So that's like lots of national anthems where we know which celebrate the natural beauty of the country.
- [62:23]
Dominic Sandbrook
Nice topographical description. People love that in an anthropolog.
- [62:26]
Tom Holland
I think the music is great. So written by Sir Hubert Perry and orchestrated by Elgar, actually. George V Dominic. So one of your great heroes. Yeah, 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 seditious criticism of the monarchy, so it would appeal to anti monarchists as well. And it has this famous line, bring me my chariot of Fire. So it has a kind of sporting link, because Chariots of Fire gave the name to the great. You know, that film about the Olympics, whatever it was.
- [63:04]
Dominic Sandbrook
Did you just say whatever it was?
- [63:06]
Tom Holland
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 music festivals. So I think it does tick a lot of boxes. And also, I have to say, it is already the official hymn of a great English national sport, namely cricket.
- [63:26]
Dominic Sandbrook
I think it's got a bit of a class orientation, Jerusalem, though, 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 taint it for some listeners.
- [63:41]
Tom Holland
Yeah, possibly. But I'm sure you could kind of soup it up, maybe become the people's anthem.
- [63:47]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right. Change the lyrics. Exactly. Yeah.
- [63:49]
Tom Holland
I played at Glastonbury. I mean, who knows?
- [63:51]
Dominic Sandbrook
I'm still in the God Save the King camp.
- [63:52]
Tom Holland
Frankly, I'm agnostic.
- [63:54]
Dominic Sandbrook
Okay. As always, Tom.
- [63:56]
Tom Holland
Yeah, as always.
- [63:57]
Dominic Sandbrook
You played your traditional card.
- [63:58]
Tom Holland
Yeah, I have. So that is the national anthem of England and Scotland.
- [64:03]
Dominic Sandbrook
Wow.
- [64:04]
Tom Holland
And next, Dominic, we've got Germany, haven't we? England's old rivals at football.
- [64:08]
Dominic Sandbrook
We'll be talking about all kinds of people. Actually, we'll be talking about the Kaiser. He'll be back. Will be talking about Horst Wessel.
- [64:14]
Tom Holland
Will we?
- [64:15]
Dominic Sandbrook
The Nazi martyr. Maybe a little.
- [64:18]
Tom Holland
Little mention of Hitler.
- [64:19]
Dominic Sandbrook
A little mention of Hitler, Yeah. The East Germans. Conrad Adenauer. So it's actually an unbelievably interesting story, the story of the German national anthem. Or should I say anthems?
- [64:30]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [64:30]
Dominic Sandbrook
Wonderful.
- [64:31]
Tom Holland
Looking forward to that, Dominic.
- [64:32]
Dominic Sandbrook
And then the Dutch.
- [64:33]
Tom Holland
So, yeah, then we've got the Dutch, then we've got Brazil, and then we have South Africa.
- [64:37]
Dominic Sandbrook
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?
- [64:42]
Tom Holland
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 Is History Club, then you can go to therestishistory.com, sign up there and you get the whole lot, plus a whole load of supplementary benefits.
- [65:01]
Dominic Sandbrook
And the only way to get those benefits is to sign up on that website. Am I right?
- [65:05]
Tom Holland
Yes, that is correct.
- [65:06]
Dominic Sandbrook
Okay, brilliant.
- [65:07]
Tom Holland
We're going to go out on Jerusalem, the perhaps future English national anthem.
- [65:13]
Dominic Sandbrook
Bye bye.
- [65:13]
Tom Holland
Bye bye.
- [65:35]
Dominic Sandbrook
And. Sam. Sa. Jam.
- [67:20]
Tom Holland
Hello, everyone. It's Tom Holland. Here I am with the great Helen Castor. 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 ii, 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 ii, the anointed King of England? That's a bigger problem, isn't it?
- [67:55]
Helen Castor
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. How do you remove 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 him to abdicate. You need belt and braces if you possibly can. And they declare that his young son, Edward III, 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.
- [68:56]
Tom Holland
Edward, by this point is in Berkeley Castle by Bristol, and he conveniently dies. And what are the theories on how he dies, Helen?
- [69:09]
Helen Castor
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.
- [69:30]
Tom Holland
Come on, Helen, we know how he died. Stop. Stop skirting around the issue. Get to the poker, the red hot poker.
- [69:37]
Helen Castor
Well, what we know is this story gets told. And of course it gets told because it encapsulates the whole story.
- [69:45]
Tom Holland
Hold on one moment.
- [69:46]
Helen Castor
Does it not?
- [69:46]
Tom Holland
What happens to the red hot poker? You're going to make me say this.
- [69:50]
Helen Castor
A red hot poker thrust into his anus to burn his intestines from. 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 Piers Gaveston.
- [70:12]
Tom Holland
How early do these stories appear? I mean, is it possible that this is historically accurate?
- [70:18]
Helen Castor
I can't prove that it isn't. And they do appear quite early.
- [70:22]
Tom Holland
Quite early, I think generally on the rest is 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 he does he has a red hot poker shoved up his ass and that's the end of Edward ii. Thanks very much for listening and if you'd like to hear the first two episodes, then go to thereestishistory.com, sign up there. But I can't believe you haven't already done that.