Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the First Performance of ‘Rule, Britannia!’

Abstract

A B S T R A C T . The words and music of 'Rule, Britannia!' are synonymous with the expansionist, triumphalist, and imperialist Britain symbolized by fluttering Union Jacks on the Last Night of the Proms. This article explores the cultural and political contexts of the first performance of this important national cultural artefact as the finale of Alfred: a masque to suggest that this opening night served a very different purpose. The first audience was a court in exile from the metropolitan heart of London, popular amongst the general public, but without any prospects of government. Two of the most important members of this group of peers, politicians, poets and a prince had recently died, and with them any cohesive identity. Alfred is both a desperate plea for unity, a rallying cry which forcefully restated the key tenets of this group's identity, and a delayed expression of patriotic celebration occasioned by Admiral Vernon's capture of Portobello. Through addressing this performance, this article makes an important contribution to our understanding of Hanoverian political culture and highlights the continuing impact of Anglo-Saxon England on mid-eighteenthcentury Britain.

Heritage and Nationalism

“…Imperialism also resonates through mentions of extracts from the lyrics of Rule, Britannia!, originally written in the eighteenth century by James Thomson and David Mallet as the finale of Alfred. This masque represented a political statement and was first performed in August 1740 for Frederick, Prince of Wales (Cox 2013). The intention, at the time, was to express a 'Patriot opposition' to Frederick's father, George II, and to Sir Robert Walpole, who was pursuing a vision of European peace to the detriment of British naval expansion and trade (Gerrard 1994;Cox 2013, 933).…”