‘Youknow exactly what it is as soon as you hear the opening drum roll,’ says Major Stewart Halliday, director of music, Coldstream Guards. ‘It captures the imagination right from the start.’ And the melody that follows has been capturing imaginations for well over 250 years. Yet still, after all this time since its first recorded performance in 1745, evidence for the origins of God Save the Queen/King remains scant.
When that performance was given at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 28 September, London was in a state of panic. George II’s Protestant reign seemed under mortal threat from the Stuart pretender Bonnie Prince Charlie – a Catholic – and his Jacobite forces. ‘Jacobite rebellion was just under way in Scotland,’ says historian Paul Monod of Middlebury College in Vermont. ‘London was especially fearful of a supporting invasion by the French, landing in southern England. By December 1745 people were rushing to get their money out of banks… and stocks tumbled.’
Cometh the hour, cometh the song for a historic moment, arranged by prominent composer Thomas perhaps affirmed George’s occupancy of the British throne in the face of the Jacobite competition. The basic melody closely resembled what we know today, but we must imagine an ornate performance graced with embellishment and improvisation according to the practice of the day. The newspaper said the audience ‘were agreeably surpriz’d by the Gentlemen belonging to that House performing the Anthem of God save our noble King. The universal Applause it met with, being encored with repeated Huzzas, sufficiently denoted in how just an Abhorrence they hold the arbitrary Schemes of our invidious Enemies, and detest the despotick Attempts of Papal Power.’
