Dear Friends,
One of our group Patricia Jelbert who was actually in Prague on the day Russian tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia in 1968, sent me an explanation of the song "Rule Britannia".
This is what Patricia sent me:
The BBC tried to “de-voice” the Rule Britannia hymn on the basis, apparently, of allusions to this countries slavery history. Of course, using Covid19 as an additional cover-story justification.
Slavery, YES indeed, but brother, didn’t the BBC get it wrong as to “WHICH” slavery….
In the 17th century the seas around Britain were ruled by North African Muslim Slavers. They stopped British ships and carried off the crews to be sold as slaves in Algiers and Tripoli.
The situation became so bad that fishermen from Devon and Cornwall wouldn’t put out to sea in case they were captured by North African Slave Traders.
Between 1609 and 1616, 466 British ships were captured by Slave Traders in the Bristol channel, English Channel, Irish Sea and North Atlantic, and the crews were sold into slavery.
In 1625 a raiding party landed at Mount’s Bay in Cornwall and 60 people who had taken refuge in a local church were dragged out, loaded up and taken off to Africa to be sold as slaves.
On 12 August 1625 the Mayor of Plymouth wrote to London for military help after 27 ships had been seized by North African Muslim Slave Traders in just 10 days. In 1645, 240 people were seized as slaves in Cornwall.
The situation only began to change after the end of the English Civil War when the Navy (future Royal Navy) started building up under Oliver Cromwell. By 1700, North African Slavers generally knew better than to bother the British Isles in the search for slaves because of the Royal Navy.
It was a triumph that Britain was finally able to control its own coastal waters. And it was in commemoration of this that in 1740, James Thompson wrote ‘Rule Britannia’. It is a hymn of thanksgiving rather than a proclamation of aggressive Nationalism.
In the light of our government about to impose same sex marriage on the people of the Cayman Islands, a deeply Christian population of only 68000 souls,
I found the leading of singing of the Rule Britannia by the gross bisexual mezzo soprano, Jamie Barton , on the last night of last year's proms, macabre. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDtyJyidhlc
Just prior to this the BBC showed her being interviewed by a drag queen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXsVThTHpDE
I can only assume that the BBC and the Promenaders were both LGBT and Palestinian supporters and would fully support the Britannia invading the Caymanian islands with gay cruise ships . Britain is neither Great anymore, nor does it rule the seas – not in any shape or form!
So I say put an end to this grotesque mockery of a real love for our nation and that of other Commonwealth countries on whom her majesty's government is going to impose imperial LGBT human rights.
David