Published: originally in Commonweal, Feb. 12 1887, p.52; reprinted with new conclusion as a Penny Pamphlet by James Leatham, Aberdeen, 1890.
Note: The article was originally written for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887
Transcribed: by Graham Seaman for the Marxists' Internet Archive.
Last edited: June 2025.
'GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!'
Great Britain, in the estimation of every true-born Englishman and Scotchman, is the most Christian of all nations. It has, according to the words repeated almost every Sunday in the pulpit, "been a peculiarly blessed land." God, it is alleged, has been pleased "to vouchsafe to its people the sincere milk of the word;" and every child is expected to know that the secret of Britain's greatness has been its earnest devotion to the teaching of the Bible. With a generosity, too, becoming its proud position, it has undertaken the mission of conveying the "secret" to all the barbarous tribes of the world; but unfortunately these benighted peoples do not seem to have appreciated its true value or the proper method ofapplying it—its failure to achieve "greatness" for them being of a very conspicuous character.
Well, in this Christian country of ours, we have what is termed a "National Anthem." Of its popularity there can be no question. It is the perfect expression of the patriotic fervour of every honest Christian Briton. When it is sung, it is sung with vigour and gusto—Tory and Liberal, pauper and peer, school boy and professor, rising to their feet and uncovering their heads, and vieing with each other in the force of lungs and earnestness of countenance with which they give utterance to its pious and patriotic sentiments. Not only, indeed, do loyal people insist on standing uncovered during the singing of the Anthem, but they reckon it rank blasphemy for anyone to presume to do otherwise. I have been once or twice myself mildly reminded of this fact, by having my hat crushed down upon my skull as a penalty for daring to exercise the right of private judgment upon the matter. However, being a good Scotchman, if a bad Briton, I have comforted myself with remembering that Robert Burns was once, for a similar act of impiety, bundled head and heels out of the theatre at Dumfries. Burns, owever, almost deserved this treatment as a retribution for his writing in a moment of patriotic enthusiasm, stimulated by the threatened French invasion, the somewhat equivocal lines:
Who will not sing,
"God save the King,"
Shall hang as high's the steeple;
But while we sing,
"God save the King,"
We'll ne'er forget the people.
Our National Anthem is an indispensable institution. No theatrical performance, concert, or public entertainment; no civil or politic demonstration, can appropriately terminate without it.
Children are taught to sing it in schools, and elephants to perform to its strains in menageries. It is alike in request in announcing the arrival of the village circus, and in celebrating the installation of the Chancellor of a University. Nor is the sphere of its popularity confined to secular uses—it has even upon occasions displaced the venerable Psalms of David in our national and dissenting churches. Some time ago one of Her Majesty's chaplains was discoursing upon Socialism to a fashionable congregation. Towards the conclusion of his sermon he dwelt upon the dreadful state of things that would supervene if Socialism should prevail—the possibility of which so roused his indignation, and his indignation in turn so filled him with a fervour of commingled piety and loyalty, that—with the view I suppose of exorcising himself and his congregation from the pernicious effects of even the thought of Socialism transpiring—he called upon the people of God to join with him in singing "God save the Queen!" And the people of God did join with him, and sung the anthem with electrifying force and unsurpassed depth of devotion—clinging as fervently to the refrain as the crew of a sinking ship clings to a top-gallant spar.
There is one verse of this truly touching and beautiful hymn which deserves notice. It is always rendered with special volume and spirit, and may be regarded as the pith of the piece:
O Lord our God arise!
Scatter her enemies,
And make them fall!
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On her our hearts we fix—
God save the Queen!
What quaint emphasis lies in the expression, "and make them fall!" Now, what I think must be evident to every impartial mind is, not only the ingenuous magnanimity of those lines, their excellent accordance with the history and spirit of our nation, but the Christian humility that pervades them, and especially the closeness of the with which they paraphrase the injunctions of the Scriptures: "Love your neighbours as yourself;" "Love your enemies;" and "Do good to those who revile you and spitefully use you." When, too, we remember that these lines (applied to George III. as "God save the King") were sung against our American brethren during the War of Independence, we cannot but discern how admirably Christian sentiment compounded with politics is adapted to make manifest "the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man."
It might be argued, Why ask God to save the Queen? If there is any lady in the land who knows how to take good care of herself, at other people's expense, it is surely Her Majesty. We give her several hundred thousand pounds a year to provide her with the decencies and comforts of life, supply her with palaces and yachts and keep them in repair, pay lords and ladies to attend upon her; we do all this and get nothing in return save insult and injury. Surely if anybody in the world could get on without the special assistance of the Almighty, it is the Queen. Seeing we do all the "works" for her, we might leave her to do the "prayer" part of the busines herself. If we asked God to save the women who are starving in the slums of our cities or cast out to die on roadsides by ruffians in Ireland and the highlands of Scotland, there might be some reason in our supplication; but to howl to the Creator of the universe for His special protection to a self-satisfied, over-fed, greedy, scandal-mongering old relict of an effete despotism is surely downright impertinence, not to say patent blasphemy.[fn1]
"A Man's a Man for a' that," and I suppose a woman's a woman and no more than a woman, no matter how many crowns she may have on her head, or how many flunkeys may crawl at her feet. The Queen, so far as I know, is neither "so very fat nor so very funny" as the old song has it, or indeed possessed of any other remarkable physical or mental quality to make her person or her welfare of special interest to the Almighty or the public. You could pick up old women, quite as fat and as pompous, by the bushelful in the country any day, particularly at butcher-shop and public-house doors.Yet wherever she goes she is received by a vast rabble of sycophants with hallelujahs and vociferous applause. Statesmen, public officials, greybeard professors, land thieves, labour thieves, and the race of "money-mongers all" bow down and adore her as if she were a goddess and by no means made of the same clay as any other pauper old woman in the land.
When, for example, she visited the Glasgow Exhibition a few years ago, the statue of Robert Burns was removed from its position in the Grand Hall to make room for her temporary throne; and there Her Majesty sat and surveyed one of the largest crowds of hypocrites and flunkeys that ever tempted an earthquake to open its granite jaws and gobble up the surplus population. But earthquakes, like most other useful institutions, are no darned use nowadays.
On all occasions when she condescends to open a public hall, or visit an hospital or Exhibition, or perform some other equally useless function, she is surrounded with the same barbaric show—but it is show merely. Therein is at least a moiety of consolation. The crowd of idolaters are all hypocrites: it is but just to them to recognise that. There is really not a sincere act done or an honest word spoken during these ceremonies. All is feigned; every man and woman present (excepting perhaps some of the mere masses who are kept outside) are there, not to honour the Queen, but to display and advertise themselves. Supposing the Queen were a wooden effigy or a piece of cracked old china, everything would go on just the same. If she were to die or be deposed to-morrow, and if the King of the Cannibal Islands were to be stuck in repeat the her place, the loyal multitude would repeat "the performance" daily and nightly. There is scarcely a lord or a money-bag but would kick herself and her crown into the German Ocean to-morrow, if it would serve his interest and vanity to do so. There are more knaves than fools in the world—if there is any comfort in the fact, let us humbly avail ourselves of it!
Of course, I do not regard the worship of the Queen as the only or the worst form of social heathenism in our midst; nor do I regard her as a more useless and expensive personage than many others that feast and fatten upon the ignorance and credulity of the people. I have in this instance singled her, and the glorification of her, merely because they are archetypical of the whole system of idolatry to rank, wealth, and power which upholds and perpetuates class dominion and plunder in modern civilization. She at least pretends to do something for the £400,000 (and extras) which she takes of our taxes.
1. The article in Commonweal ended at this point with the following paragraph:
But let us be prepared. This is the Jubilee of Her Majesty's most beneficent reign, and "God save the Queen" with a forty million power of lungs and brass bands will soon re-echo through the kingdom. We will have probably more of "God save the Queen" in this one year than in all the last fifty years put together. A terrible thought! Let us hope the ordeal, even if it cracks our ears, will not crack our heads; and that if it does not bring judgment down from the skies it will waken the long-slumbering Demigorgon power in the hearts of the people, which will rise and drag despotism and plunder down into the void.