The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #46861   Message #3701902
Posted By: Rob Naylor
14-Apr-15 - 09:45 PM
Thread Name: What songs for St. George's Day?
Subject: RE: What songs for St. George's Day?
Guest DTM: V3 of UK Nat Anthem.....

It's never actually been part of the national anthem at all. It was a doggerel verse written in the 1740s around the time of the Jacobite rebellion.

It's often trotted out by Scots as "proof" that the UK sees Scotland as subservient to England, but it's just one of many doggerel "verses" that were sung by various groups pursuing their own agendas, but which were never formally part of the actual anthem. The Jacobite version went:

God bless the prince, I pray
God bless the prince, I pray
Charlie I mean.
That Scotland we may see Freed
From vile Presbyt'ry
Both George and his Feckie
Ever so, Amen.