IN the early autumn of 1745, the future of Hanoverian rule in Britain hung in the balance. Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Stewart claimant to the throne, had landed in Scotland and occupied Edinburgh. On September 21, he also routed a government force close to the city at the Battle of Prestonpans. Regular soldiers were being hastily returned from Flanders to counter the threat and, in London, in response to the crisis, there was an outpouring of patriotic fervour. It found particular expression in theatres, where audiences responded enthusiastically to displays of loyalty to George II.
On September 28, 1745, therefore, a notice in the General Advertiser announced that Mr Lacy, Master of his Majesty’s Company of Comedians at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, had ‘applied for leave to raise 200 men, in defence of his Majesty’s person and government’. In the auditorium that evening, after a performance of Ben Jonson’s play The Alchemist, three celebrated singers of the day —Susannah Cibber, John Beard and Thomas Reinhold—stepped onto the stage and, with the support of a male choir, sang a traditional anthem with new words. It had been arranged by Thomas Arne, the composer who a few years previously had set a verse by James Thomson called Rule Britannia as the rousing finale of his 1740 masque Alfred.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
