Legacy and Modern Controversies

This episode is brought to you by Lloyd's Business and Commercial Banking. One of the great things about finance is that it may result in you having to pay tax, and this was a constant grumble in Anglo Saxon England, which was the most heavily taxed country in the whole of Christendom. And just when the Anglo Saxons thought it couldn't get any worse, they got conquered by King Canute, and Canute imposed a tax rate that was effectively One hundred percent. Yeah, well that was one very big change, uh Tom, but another tax change is upon us. And this is the advent of making tax digital for income tax. And if you're at all concerned about it, this is where Lloyds come in, because they are here to help make that change much simpler for you with a useful HMLC recognized accounting tool that will help you stay in line with all the making tax digital. requirements. And the brilliant thing about this is that it is free for Lloyd's business account customers. So when it is time to digitize your income tax You can bank on Lloyd's. Search Lloyd's business accounts. to find out more. This episode is brought to you by TikTok. Believe it or not. History isn't just in textbooks. It comes to life every day on TikTok. Millions of people are exploring the history of music, fashion, food, and art. discovering new facts about the things they love. One scroll could take you from the roots of jazz to the flavours of ancient kitchens. And the next might reveal a quirky fact. about how modern traditions came to be. Discover the past in new ways on TikTok. Curiosity never gets old. This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. You don't have to let overpriced phone bills suck the joy out of the holidays, because right now, Mint Mobile's unlimited plans are fifty percent off. You can get three, six, or twelve months of unlimited plans. Premium Wireless for fifteen bucks month. It's the best deal of the year. Shop Mint Unlimited Plans at mintmobile. com slash history. Terms and conditions apply. See mintmobile. com. Yeah So uh that was a song originally entitled The Defence of Fort McHenry, and it was written by a guy call Francis Scott Key in September. eighteen fourteen. And it is probably better known as the Star Spangled Banner. And Dominic What better way to kick off our series marking the 2026 football? Or if you're in America, soccer, world cup. held in the United States, in Mexico and Canada, which starts this Thursday and it will be ending in just over a month in New York. So Dominic, what we've done with this series, we have picked six competing nations in this World Cup, haven't we? Whose national anthems have a fascinating backstory, um, tell us all kinds of things about the countries that they serve as a national anthem and all kinds of fabulous characters in them. And lots of great myths to be busted. We love busting a myth. We love busting a myth. So on Thursday, we are going to be looking at England and Scotland. And then next week we're going to be looking at Germany and the Netherlands. And in our third week, we're going to be looking at Brazil. And then last of all. South Africa. But Fittingly. Because it is the host nation, because of its prominence in sport. 'Famously the most difficult anthem actually to sing. we are going to be starting with the star spankled banner. Yes. So hello everybody. Um a very recognizable anthem. It's been reinterpreted very controversially at times by Jose Feliciano, by Jimi Hendrix. by Whitney Houston and by Borat Sagdiev. It played a central role, of course, in the Black Lives Matter protests in the late twenty ten and in twenty twenty. So it was during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner that the San Francisco Forty Niners quarterback Colin Kapinick first took the knee in twenty sixteen and we'll be talking about that a bit later. There have actually always been people who don't like this anthem. Americans who don't like it. And there have been lots of alternative versions as Americans have tried to adapt it to their own political causes. So again, we'll talk about that a little bit later. But first of all, I think it would be fun to start off with the historical moment that the anthem is all about. So this is the British attack on Fort McHenry. Hooray. Which is just off Baltimore, in Maryland. In September. eighteen fourteen. And that means that we will be talking about a war That I think It's genuinely never spoken about from one year to the next in Britain. Except the King did mention it, didn't he, in his recent speech. Made a very good joke about it. But he didn't say that in Britain, he said it in the United States. So on British soil it I don't think it is ever mentioned. That is true. This is the war of eighteen twelve. And even for American listeners, I think. would have to concede that this war is very obscure as in fact reading an American History about it. And he said. Basically we skim over this in schools, no one really talks about it. No one understands what it was about or what the point of it was. Partly I think because it's a draw. So no one really enjoys you know, no one really revels in it. I think there's a certain been a certain degree of revelling on this podcast, hasn't there? Because um it does it does see the British burn down the White House. It does. Yeah, one of the great moments in history and we will be alluding to that today. So it's it's eclipsed in America, I think, by the independence struggle, the tax revolt. And it's eclipsed in Britain by the you know, the w the world war against Napoleonic France. And it's basically a sequel to the American War of Independence and an offshoot of the Napoleonic Wars. And to cut a very long story short, this war, the war of eighteen twelve, broke out that summer. Uh for four reasons. So first of all the Madison administration. So this is I think the fourth uh president of the United States, James Madison. terribly colourful or well known president. He's uh chafing. Britain's trade embargo against Napoleonic France. And the Americans say, Come on, why are we subject to this trade embargo? We want to be able to trade freely. We don't want Ro the Royal Navy, you know, i seizing our ships. Reason number two, they don't want the Royal Navy um pressing American Semen. into the Royal Navy. So when the Royal Navy, you know, sees an American ship, they will take some of the Americans and force them to work on the British ship people are sick of that. Number three, the Madison administration have expansionist ambitions. So they think or the Brits are just distracted by what's going on in Europe. We can seize upper and lower Canada. Uh so that's sort of Ontario country. And that's something they've been kind of angling to do since the War of Independence, isn't it? Exactly, they have. They think they've got unfinished business, basically. They want to take what becomes Canada. And it kind of rumbles on, doesn't it? Because there's that whole thing with the windmill. The windmill. We did that on a bonus episode. Great Canadian victory. And the Americans also think there are lots of um sort of Native American Indian uh confederations that stand in the way of Westward expansion that are allied to the British. Let's seize the opportunity to knock them out, too. And finally they think, you know, nothing builds a nation more than a war. A successful war. Let's have a second war of independence. We can we've had a lot of internal divisions recently. We can all rally around the flag. And Dominic can I just ask, 'cause the flag is going to be quite important in the story. At this point, it is fifteen stars and fifteen strip. Exactly right. Exactly. If we take the first year or so of the war. The Americans are on the attack, the British are on the defensive. Um the Americans launched their invasion of Upper and Lower Canada and they think it's going to be a walkover. Thomas Jefferson, not a great friend of the rest of history. Says that it's the acquisition of Canada as far as the neighborhood of Quebec will be a mere matter of marching. Was he ever right about anything? Sadly not. Another war hawk, uh Henry Clay, said to Congress. You need you don't even need to send out a proper army, just send the Kentucky militia and they will lay Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet. And I'm very happy to say, especially f happy on behalf of our Canadian listeners. This is not true at all. Because the invasions of Canada are a complete and utter failure and the British actually end up occupying parts of the United States, parts of Michigan and Maine. And this is of course a foundational moment in Canadian identity. So the one place that where where people do talk about the war of eighteen twelve. is in Canada because it's the d the central distinctive moment that marks them out, I think. And Dominic, of course Canada is co hosting with the United States and Mexico this World Cup. And so this is another very important reason why we're doing this. particular topic isn't it? It's for our Canadian listeners. This is really a Canadian story. Let them know we love them. Yeah, exactly. The following year, eighteen thirteen, the British launched a naval offensive of their own, the Chesapeake Bay Campaign. And basically the plan is To quote Rear Admiral George Coburn, he's in charge of it. We're going to lay waste to the shore, we're going to lay waste to all these um these towns within this vast bay, including the capital, uh Washington, D C, because we want to cripple America's commerce across the Atlantic. And that will turn public opinion in America. Against the war. And at first the British do this in a sort of half hearted way that but then by n eighteen fourteen Napoleon has been beaten. So he's abdicated for the first time and he's been sent off to Elba. And so the British say, Well the Americans are still going, bizarrely. So why don't we div divert resources now to knock them out of the war? So let's set the scene. It's the summer of eighteen fourteen. And the British are advancing up the Potomac River from the coast. They're heading towards Alexandria and Washington, DC. And this is the context for Coburn, the Rear Admiral, and Major General Robbie Ross to carry out one of the most intrepid and inspiring operations in world history. An operation I know our American l listeners love hearing about. which is the occupation of Washington and the burning down of the US Capitol and the White House. Robbie Ross is an Irishman, isn't he? So it's it's a reminder of Anglo Irish operations. Yeah. Ireland and Great Britain standing shoulder to shoulder against a common foe. I think that's how we would like to see it. Heart warming. So they burn the White House. They Dolly Madison's dinner, and four days later, they are heading for their next target, which is Baltimore. Baltimore, Maryland, at this point is I think something like the third biggest city in the United States. It's a really important trading harbour and harbour and all of that. And they are in great spirits. the British. They're they've been drinking a lot, unsurprisingly, and they've been helping themselves to what they see as long overdue tax returns from the American rebels. And sad to say, there's a local busybody who's called Doctor Beans. Dr William Beans. And he lives in rural Maryland and he tries to stop the British from basically looting and pillaging. They're not looting and pillaging, you just said that collecting tax arrears. That was just me putting myself in Dr. Beans's head. I don't agree with him. He's obviously a terrible man. Oh, thank God I'm on hand to provide the objectivity that a good history podcast should provide. So quite rightly, our brave lads arrested this bloke beans. And they took him down the river. towards Baltimore. And some of his friends wanted to petition the British for Dr Beans's release. This was a very common practice during the war. You would basically go under flag of truce and say, Please can we have a so and so back? And his friends decide to get a go between and the go between in p in question is a lawyer called Francis Scott Key. Who we mentioned right at the start of the show. We did indeed. So he's the author of the Anthem. Now American listeners of course will recognize his name, but they might not know loads about him. He was born in seventeen seventy nine to a Fairly well of family in Maryland. His father had been in George Washington's rebel army. Um, he'd been a judge. Francis Scott Key grew up in the family plantation. So he's from a slave owning family. Comes from a slave owning family, which will be important later on. He was a well known lawyer. He had eleven children, which I think seems a lot. Uh he lives with his wife and eleven children in Georgetown. He does various big trials, he speaks before the Supreme Court. He's quite a well known person. And the fact that he is a slave owner, Tom. I'm glad you flagged it because is going to make this anthem. Controversial. Later on, so we'll come to that. Anyway. The second of september eighteen fourteen. He writes to his mother, and he says, I'm going in the morning to Baltimore to proceed in a flag vessel to General Ross, old doctor Beans of Marlborough. is taken prisoner by the enemy. And some of his friends have urged me to go and get him out and to procure procure his release. I don't know where he is, but I'll do my best. So he goes off to Baltimore, he finds uh the local United States agent who deals the prisoners of war. They rent a ship. And they sail off towards Chesapeake Bay and they're looking for the British fleet because they think that's where this blake beans is being held. And on the seventh of September they find HMS Tonnel. Near the mouth of the Potomac in Chesapeake Bay now. Some people may remember HMS Tom Tom. Do you remember it? That's the question. Well, it's the the name is of course a French one. Uh, and we have done a series on a particular British Admiral who's very good at capturing French ships. We have. Now can anyone remember the name of that Admiral? Is it Admiral Nelson? It is Superb. So. Tonor had been captured at the Nile, it had fought splendidly under Captain Charles Tyler at Trafalgar, It had captured a French ship. And now the tunnel is um fighting the Americans. Anyway, so Key approaches the tunnel under flag of truce and he's allowed aboard. He and this agent that he's with, they are invited for dinner by the British. They're treated very well, the British bigwigs. Well, because Ross, the Irish Irishman, has a tremendous reputation for chivalry. Very chivalrous. Charming man. So when they say to Ross, can we have doc disploke Dr. Beans? Ross says Um yeah, I don't know. And Key has brought letters from wounded British soldiers, British prisoners of war. Saying that American doctors as a group have been very kind to them. And Ross reads these letters and he says, Oh, well, okay, fine. You can have, you know, maybe beans can go. 'Cause he's a warm hearted man. Yeah, kindly. So looks like they're just gonna go about with this black beans. However, while they've been having dinner, the Americans have overheard the British officers talking about how they're going to attack Baltimore. So the British say, Well, since you've heard us talking about this, you're gonna have to stay with us. until the operation is over. Key and beans were transferred to another ship. HMS surprise, which is towing the little ship that they'd arrived on. And they all move together up the Chesapeake towards Baltimore. And on the eleventh, the Americans are allowed to go back to their own ship, which is still tethered to HMS surprise, and they're basically under military guard. twelfth, nothing happens, they're just hanging around, a bit bored. And then at dawn on the thirteenth, the British opened the bombardment of Baltimore, or more specifically They open the bombardment of the fort that guard the entrance to Baltimore Harbour, which is Fort McHenry, which is the fort in the anthem. So key And this medical busybody. This massive fun sponge, Dr. Beans, who's been trying to stop our brave lads looting. They're watching this from a safe distance on their ship. They're about eight miles away. And they can see that this bombardment is a really big deal. So the attack is led by HMS Erebus. Which is firing congreve rockets. So if you know the American national anthem. The rocket's red glare. These are the Congreve rockets being fired by HMS Erebus. I mean they're dangerous, aren't they? They're very dangerous. the British use them to burn down Copenhagen. Yeah. You know, anyone who remembers our Nelson era podcasts will remember that, you know, naval bombardments are not a bundle of laughs. No. So there are just as at Copenhagen, there are also bomb vessels, specialist bomb vessels. So in this case they're called terror, volcano, devastation, meteor, and etna. You wouldn't want to be attacked by ships with names like that. You wouldn't. Do we still have ships like that in the Royal Navy? I don't think we do. No, we don't have any ships, do we? Yeah, we don't have any ships these ships are firing shells. Uh the fort. These are the bombs bursting in air from the anthem. And over the next twenty four hours or so, they fire a total of seven hundred rockets, one thousand five hundred shells. However Although you quake at the thought of these rockets and shells Tom. They're not very effective. Because Fort McHenry is equipped with very powerful artillery. So the British have to stay back at the very limit of their range. And they don't really do that much damage. They kill four people. They wound twenty four. But they don't really have any impact whatsoever on the fort's defences. I wonder what Nelson would have done. He would have launched an operation at land that would have involved him losing an arm. Surely. American Adventurer. There's a good historical novel in that. Anyway, Key, Francis Scott Key is watching this. He can't tell that they're not having any um effect. He's just in awe at the general spectacle. It seemed as though Mother Earth had opened and was vomiting shot and shell and a sheet of fire and brimstone. He says. Anyway, darkness falls. There's just this kind of vague red blur in the distance. More stuff is exploding on the walls of the fort. Basically He all night he's kind of watching this and he's thinking, like, has the fort fallen? You know, what's going on. 'Cause he's not a military man. So he doesn't appreciate. The British Navy. Sportingly at the limits of what it can actually do. Exactly. Dawn breaks on the 14th, and the fort still stands. As every morning. The American commander, Major George Armistead, orders his men to raise this massive national flag, which as you said at the beginning Has fifteen stars. and fifteen stripes. Now this flag which is now in the uh Smithsonian actually, this flag has a history of its own. So A year earlier. Mater Armistead had actually said, you know, the British are probably going to attack Baltimore. Uh we need a a bloody big flag. We want to have a flag so large that the British will have no difficulty seeing it from a distance. So he basically wants this flag as a sort of emblem of defiance. And he commissioned the flag, which is absolutely massive. It's forty two feet by thirty feet. He commissioned it from a Baltimore widow called Mary Pickersgill. And she took us six weeks to uh make it. She made it with her teenage daughter and her nieces and a servant. I don't want to do this. Yeah. Boring, not another star. Yeah, exactly. And they used they used three hundred yards of English wool bunting. probably my favorite kind of bunting. The stars were made of cotton, they saved them on afterwards. And she was paid four hundred and five dollars and ninety cents for it. And then Armistead gave him her another hundred dollars for a smaller flag called a storm flag. So during the Bomb Bomb the storm flag was flying. And then at dawn. They raise, as usual, this massive national flag. Oh, I didn't know that. So actually I'd always thought that the flag, you know, had been hit by shell and all ro Congly rockets and stuff, but was still flying boldly. But that's a kind of cheat. It is a cheat, total tom. So But this huge flag appears. Francis Scott Key sees the flag and he says to himself, Oh, this is brilliant. The fort has held out. Now of course he thinks this is a great underdog triumph. What he doesn't know is there was actually never really any possibility that the fort would fall because the British are too far away. But anyway, on land the British should be in advancing, and that hasn't gone terribly well either. sorry to say that Major General Ross, so you were complimenting earlier on. He has been shot by a sniper. Battle of North Point. Grotesque act of cowardice and cheating. He's been killed. No. Yeah, the British have fallen back. They didn't write an anthem about that. No. So a couple of days later the British say well this is this is too tough a nut to crack. We'll call off the operation. Anyway, while that's been going on, Key has been sitting on this ship, still kind of basically under guard. Twidling his thumbs. So what's a guy to do when you're twiddling your thumbs? Maybe Write an anthem? Well, not an anthem. He decides to write a poem. Oh right. So You will often read on uh on the internet. that he writes it uh on the back of an envelope that he'd found in his pocket. And it turns out that this is a this is an untruth. He didn't write it on an envelope. And there's a historian who has dug deep into this story called Mark Clegg. And he says, um, no. Envelopes weren't used in eighteen fourteen. They were well or rather, they were only used on very special occasions, um, by the rich. So Key would have if he was gonna have sc write a letter. He would have folded it over and not used an envelope, so he couldn't have had an envelope. So with ceiling wax, I guess, and a stamp. And Key would undoubtedly have taken a lot of blank paper with him. for the negotiations for this doctor's release and to write a letter to President Madison about how he was getting on. This would have been good paper and not scrap paper. So And some of this high quality note paper. He writes his poems. And finally that evening He it's what are we now? The sixteenth or something? He and the others are allowed to go back to Baltimore. And he's got a room at the Indian Queen Hotel and he finishes his poem there. And the handwritten draft of the poem you can see at the Maryland Historical Society. And you can actually see how he's written three verses and then he's kind of running out of space. And he has to cram the fourth verse into the last kind of inch of paper. It's like a sort of child's letter. Yeah. We've all been there. Yeah, exactly. Now I mean he was wasting his time 'cause no one sings the fourth verse. No one cares about the fourth verse. It's the first verse that everyone sings, right? So it's the story I say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we're hailed at the twilight's last gleaming. Then there's all this stuff about the bombs and the rockets. And then the final lines, Oh, say does that sp star spangled banner yet wave, Oh the land of the free and the home of the brave. It's very kind of eight in the eighteen hundreds, eighteen tens, slightly gushing romantic kind of rhetoric. And not true. To reiterate. It shows this to his brother in law. who commands uh a local militia unit. And his brother in law Takes it to a printer. They run off a thousand copies and then they hand them out to the garrison of Fort Henry. And then the really key thing Um his brother in law gives it to the Baltimore Patriot newspaper, which prints it under the title Defence of Fort McHenry. And then other papers copy it. So as we approach the break. couple things about this poem. I've called it a poem, and in fact you said it was a song, and I said, Oh no, it's a poem, but I was being a little bit unfair there. Because actually it's somewhere in between the two. It's a thing called a broadside ballad. Basically what a broadside ballad was You would write lyrics or you know write a poem. to fit a very familiar tune. You would say This tune is a banger. I'm gonna write new words for this tune. I'm gonna publish them in a newspaper. And the reason you would use an old tune. Is that even if you wanted to write a new tune, it's more expensive. Print music. than it is to print words. And the reason is 'cause you have to do the musical notation. It has to be engraved by hand. So you'd be better to reuse an old tune. And also, uh, copyright law is not all it could be. Because there is no copyright law. You, Tom. might write lyrics to the uh tune of Taxman by the Beatles. Yes. And you would publish them in Daily Telegraph. And uh you would put a little note saying Tune Taxman. By the Beatles. And there'd be nothing the Beatles could do about it. No. There'd be no copyright law. If your lyrics were a hit. You would hope that other newspapers the Daily Express The Daily Mail. The Guardian. The Guardian probably not, I think. Well it depends. Depends on Britain. These other newspapers. Uh Reprint your lyrics. And they'd kinda go viral and you'd be a tremendous you'd be the talk of the town. people people would shake your hand as they saw you go by. And actually Francis Scott Key has formed for doing this. So in eighteen oh five he'd written his first patriotic broadside ballad. When the warrior returns. Which was celebrating US naval victories against the Barbary Corsairs. Tripoli. Oh, yeah. They were the American Navy was always fighting them, weren't they? Yes, exactly. They're some of their first wars. Bizarre against North African nominally Ottoman Kind of um I don't know, the emirates or something on the coast of North Africa. They're always capturing people and taking them into slavery. Yes, exactly. This is the third verse of When the Warrior Returns, and if you know the Star Spangled Banner you'll spot the similarities. In the conflict resistless its tort they endured till their foes fled dismayed from the war's desolation. Pale beamed the crescent, its splendour obscured by the light of the star spangled flag of our nation. Each radiant star gleamed a meteor of war, and the turbaned heads bowed to its terrible glare. Now mixed with the olive the laurel shall wave. And form a bright wreath. for the brows of the brave. So the rhythm might sound familiar because this is written for the same tune. The Star Spangled Banner and that tune. This will shock our American listeners. This would have pull them and make them question Existence itself. It's her English tune. It's the tune is called The enacreonic song. And it was written in seventeen seventy five by a man called John Stafford Smith. Now you'll sometimes read online that it was a bawdy drinking song. Kind that no doubt the author's cricket team sing. to G themselves up a T between uh Between innings. Do you not sing bawdy drinking songs? No. We would sing anachrionatic songs. Would you? Surely you would. Because we are great fans of the Ancient Greek poet. Course. Whose lyric poetry was designed to be sung. Well. And so there is a kind of classical model here. Yes. There's a faint hint of uh Emma Hamilton's. attitudes about it. Trying to bring to life a kind of ancient Greek art form. I think that's Kinda basically what's going on. I should never have opened the door to Emma Hamilton reappearing in this podcast. Anyway, she has. Basically There was a uh a club in London. Founded in seventeen sixty six. The Anacreonic Club. And uh this was for men who were interested in music. And basically when they would Go to the club. professional singer often, who was hired to sing this song. And would be accompanied on the harpsichord. So it's not really a boardy vibe. No, no. Yeah, the men would all listen to the song and then they would sing some song of their own. Key knows about this song because versions of it are already popular in the United States. So there's actually a historian at the University of Newcastle. In our own country, Dr Oscar Jensen, who has looked into this. And It had been taken up by abolitionists. So a version of it called Millions Be Free. produced by a Liverpool abolitionist to celebrate the fall of the Bastille. Thomas Paine sang it. Mary Wollstonecroft wrote about it. And it was taken by abolitionists to America in the mid seventeen nineties. Printed in New York and Baltimore, interestingly. Under the title Freedom Triumphant. It spread, people liked the tune. American politicians used it. So there was a song supporting John Adams. in the presidential election of seventeen ninety six that used it. And in fact, by eighteen twenty there are eighty different songs at least using the enacreonic melody. So they all follow the same pattern. Each verse is eight lines long. There is a rhyme at the end of each line and there is also an extra rhyme. in the middle of the fifth line. So every verse has actually nine rhymes. So Francis Scott Key. undoubtedly writes his star spangled banner to fit this pattern. Precisely because it's so familiar, because people already know about it, that it's a hit. People like songs they already know. So it's printed by more newspapers? October of eighteen fourteen, it's been printed in newspapers from New England to Georgia. And that autumn of eighteen fourteen. A shop in Baltimore, the car music store. start selling copies of the lyrics. And the owner, Thomas Carr is the person who gives it its title, the title we know today, The Star Spangled Banner. And is he publishing that with the music or just the lyrics? And people are you know, he assumes that people will recognize the the tune that goes with it. That's an excellent question. I would guess you could buy the music, but it would be more expensive because it's more expensive to produce. So That's how the thing is created, but of course that's only half the story because there's absolutely no talk at this point that it could be the national anthem. And it won't become the national anthem for more than a century. And actually, right from the beginning there is a shadow over this song, and this is the allegation that the song is a glorification. Of Slavery. So I I mean I have to say that this came as a bombshell to me, may come as a bombshell to many patriotic American listeners. Uh so please join us after the break where Dominic will be justifying. This claim. This episode is brought to you by the Times and the Sunday Times. Tom has another summer of top international football returns. Truly incredible, isn't it, to think about how much the world has changed the various tournaments. Looking back to when uh England hosted back in nineteen sixty six, everyone in the crowd supporting England were waving union jacks. So What fascinating trends does that illustrate? And I suppose the last time the United States hosted the tournament was in nineteen ninety four, and the mood in America in the early nineteen nineties, you know, the cold war was over, Clinton was in the White House. I was there for that. I was in Boston. Really? That's an aspect of the story that's very rarely reported on your present. So you know what this reminds me of, Tom? It reminds me that the future is always uncertain, you never know what's coming. But the facts need not be uncertain. And when the world feels like it's moving too fast, the Times and the Sunday Times empower to make smarter, more confident decisions. Click or tap the banner now to learn more. Or visit the times dot com. Hi, this is Gary Lineker from Goalhangers. The rest is football. This episode is brought to you by Wise. 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You don't have to let overpriced phone bills suck the joy out of the holidays, because right now, Mint Mobile's unlimited plans are fifty percent off. You can get Three, six, or twelve months of unlimited premium wireless for fifteen bucks a month. It's the best deal of the year. Shop mint unlimited plans at mintmobile.com slash history. Terms and conditions apply. See Mintmobile.com Hello everyone and welcome back to The Rest is History. And we, or more probably Dominic, left you with the suggestion that the star spangled banner. might be, as well as the glorification of America and Liberty. glorification of slavery as well. And I can only imagine we've had thousands of Americans cancelling. Their subscriptions. But You were not the first to come up with this allegation, right? Not at all. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. So in November twenty seventeen. This venerable civil rights group actually petitioned Congress. Crap. The Star Spangled Banner as the national anthem. president of the California NAACP, Alice Huffman, said and I quote, It's racist, it doesn't represent our community, it is anti black. So what's going on here? Because to the degree that I am familiar with the lyrics. I don't see anything about slavery in it. I mean there's one mention of safes, isn't there, but that's about it. Well. Okay, so let's get into this because it's actually is a fascinating subject and opens up A lot more of the history. of the eighteen tens. So People only really sing the first verse. In the third verse, in the second half now remember this is something that nobody ever sings. Francis Scott Key is exulting. In the aftermath of the British withdrawal. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave. And the star spangled banner in triumph doth wave o'er the land of the free. And the issue. focuses on those words, the hiring and Slave. Now Lots of commentators say without really thinking about it, Oh Well this must be African American slaves? Who were trying to escape from their owners. And flee to the British. I you see, I would not have said that. I would have said Th these are insults applied to Soldiers fighting. under the British crown. Right. That dates from the years of the American Revolution. Yes. And the slaves are the British soldiers who are subjects to a king. and the hirings are the Hessian mercenaries. brought in. Yep. Um and so they're applying that rhetoric now. um in a new war. That's that's what I would Say that's what I had b assumed. I my initial reaction was to completely agree with you. I thought that too. Francis Scott Key's biographer? Clegg, uh distinguished historian in the United States. He absolutely agrees with you. He says listen. Americans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century used the words hiring and slave to refer to British subjects of King George the Third. They use them as exactly as you say, to refer to hired mercenaries. and their local collaborators. And he says actually when you look at American propaganda, the word slavery is often a code word for Submission of the British King. Illoy. And this is in the context of Canada as well. Yes, exactly. Which hasn't been conquered. So That's what I'd have thought. And and we in Britain are very used to this issue because of course there is the issue of rural Britannia. So in Royal Britannia the words Britons never never shall be slaves or whatever it is You know, there was some talk in twenty twenty or so, Oh, World Britannia should be cancelled, it's terrible, it's a gl you know, it's very tasteless about slavery. But actually the slavery being talked about in Royal Britannia It's about the Vikings, isn't it? 'Cause it's about King Alfred. It's about King Alfred, but obviously it's a Yeah. Submission to the Vikings is a metaphor for submission to Catholic Spain, France, et cetera. Yeah. But can I also ask, it it derives from the the the kind of poem derives from anachron who is an ancient Greek. And the ancient Greek ideals of liberty. is obviously very current the Roman ideals of liberty. I mean it's part of the kind of the language of the American culture class in this period. Yeah. And the counterpoint to the liberty of the Athenians or the Romans. You know, say the Athenians, it's the slavery of those who were fighting for the Persian king at Marathon. Yeah, of course. I I agree with all that. I totally agree. However, when you look more closely into this, there is another side to the story. There are reasons to think that he was talking about African American slaves. And one is to do with the context. And the other to do is to do with Key himself. So if we start with the context. In the first half we described how um George Coburn's objective was to raid and destroy the towns and harbours on the Atlantic sea board. To guide his raiding parties, he needed local intelligence. And from the moment he arrived in eighteen thirteen, he and the other British uh captains relied on one group above all, which was escaped slaves. Right. And that again is something that goes back to the American War of Independence, isn't it? Because this was a British strategy to offer slaves in the south, their freedom. If they would join the British. Exactly. So at first British ships and British parties would attract individual runaway slaves. But over time they start to attract larger groups and family groups and so on. And when Coburn came back in eighteen fourteen, he'd been wintering in Bermuda, but then he comes back, he doubled down on this and he said to his captains, I want you to go out of your way to appeal. to the local slave population. And I quote, Let the landings you make be more for the protection of the desertion of the black population than with a view to any other advantage. The great point to be attained is the cordial support of the black population. With them properly armed and backed with twenty thousand British troops, Mr Madison will be hurled from his throne. Part of this he makes a very specific promise. All runaway slaves will be welcomed by the British, and under no circumstances will they be handed back. When the British tried this uh policy in the American War of Independence, It was obviously massively compromised because the British themselves were defending the plantations in the Caribbean on which there were slaves. Slavery was not illegal. Yeah. By this point you have a British Foreign Secretary who is about to go to the Congress of Vienna. press for the abolition of the slave trade. Yeah. With the other great powers. Is that something you think that would have filtered through to Black Americans? Very hard to say 'cause you wouldn't really have you wouldn't find much textual evidence. Yeah, how would you find it? But maybe it's just kind of you know, it's on the on the grapevine. I mean it would be big news, I would imagine, that's possible the British government has turned abolitionist. There was absolutely no doubt. The news of what he is offering Does you know filter through. And yes, they uh c you could well imagine people saying, Well, the British are already talking about scrapping it. And what actually he does that really horrifies white American opinion. He says all male runaway slaves will be armed. They will be given red uniforms. And they will be put in a special unit called the Corps of Colonial Marines. Yeah, 'cause this is the nightmare that haunted the original Ku Klux Klan, isn't it, in that series that we did after the Civil War. Nothing ever frightens white southern slave holders more than the prospect of armed black men. you know, rising up against them or being emboldened against them. Anyway. This corps of colonial marines did see action. They went into battle in Virginia in the end of May, and they did really well. Their British officers said I was highly pleased by the conduct of the colonial marines Every individual of which evinced the greatest eagerness to come to action with their former masters. And Coburn himself wrote They trigger the most general and undisguised alarm among American civilians. There were even uh former slaves involved in the burning of Washington. Which must have been sweet revenge for them, you would guess. Anyway. The Americans by contrast, think this is absolutely terrible. They think it's an outrage. They think it's cheating. But they think it's more than cheating. They think it's an affront to the laws of God and of nature. to arm their former slaves against them. One senior officer writes in uh August eighteen fourteen. Our negroes are flocking to the enemy from all quarters, which they convert into troops vindictive and rapacious, with the most minute knowledge of every bypath. They leave us as spies upon our posts and our strength. And they returned upon us as guides and soldiers and incendiaries. A guy actually from the National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian. Christopher Wilson. The irony is the very point when Key is writing his poem African American slaves are trying to r escape the land of the free and to reach those British ships in Baltimore Harbour. The are the antagonists. of the poem. And as to quote Christopher Wilson, this guy from the museum, they knew that they were far more likely to find freedom and liberty under the Union Jack than they were under the Star Spangled Banner. He sounds an excellent curator. I commend him for his objectivity. This is literally the best story we've ever done on this podcast. Anyway. The war ends in eighteen fifteen. Basically in a draw. Coburn is true to his word. He now has about six thousand escaped slaves. And the treaty called for the return of all United States property. So the Americans expected to get them back. And Coburn did not give them back. Because everything has changed, because the British government is now committed to abolitionism. Right. Well, at least the abolition of the slave trade, let's say. Exactly. So most of these people actually ended up in Canada. But a lot of the colonial marines, so the people who had seen action Went to Trinidad. This is an incredible story, by the way. They s they were given special villages under the command of their old sergeants. They settled there and they were called Merrikans. And They are still there today. And they're still called Americans. Goodness. That's amazing. It's an incredible story. Anyway. To go back to the words of Francis Scott Key's anthem. No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave, but I think it is perfectly possible he is talking about these people who whose flight has been such a big story. He is saying basically We will catch up with you. Or you will die. I mean it works both ways though, doesn't it? Of course. I mean it I mean that's kind of maybe the Double meaning. Yeah. However, there's one of the aspects I said there were two reasons to think it was more complicated, and the other one is key himself. Now The rest is history, ever since we started the podcast, we've never been into cancelling people or or setting ourselves up as hanging judges. However I think as an outsider. You can see why Americans. Might find it. difficult f to celebrate Francis Scott Key as an individual. He has at best a very ambiguous attitude to slavery. He owns slaves. He bought his first slave in eighteen hundred, he owned six by eighteen twenty, when he died in eighteen forty three, he had eight. He's sometimes represented as a lawyer slave owners seeking the return of their property. On the other hand He did free some of his slaves? He represented slaves who sought their freedom. And when a friend of his liberated his slaves in his will Francis Scott Kib was one of the executors and he worked to get them their freedom. And was he doing this before he wrote this poem? After, I think. Maybe his his attitudes evolved. Well, I think it's actually as complicated. He is a founder member and a very keen fundraiser for something called the American Colonisation Society. And the goal of the American colonization society is to send Men and women who have been freed. Africa. And this is the project that actually culminates in the foundation of Liberia. Now you may look at this and say, Well, that's a very nice thing to do. Actually, most of the people who backed this society were slaveholders. particularly popular in Maryland. It was particularly popular with the planter elite. It's kind of generated by an anxiety that White and black. Americans can never live together. Yes, exactly. So So it's complicated because on the one hand these people would undoubtedly have said themselves we're motivated by Christian charity. We want to find somewhere for these people to live. We want to find them a home. On the other hand, the people who fundraise the people who are activists for the society are often explicitly racist. They say, We're a white country, we don't want f free, yeah, black men and women as citizens among us. Get rid, send them to Africa. And actually a lot of abolitionists and a lot of black people themselves This colonization society. Because they see it as I mean, they see it as unambiguously racist. As for abolitionism, Key is not a fan of abolitionism at all. So you mentioned Nelson. We talk about Nelson and slavery. Nelson's not a fan of abolitionism. But I don't think it's something that's on his mind very much. He's he's not a fan of it because he thinks will weaken the British Empire, its commerce, its trade, and all of this. Nelson never actively campaigns against abolitionism. Francis Scott Key does. As district attorney for Washington D C in the eighteen thirties, he is a tireless foe of abolitionism. He brings a libel case against one anti slavery activist. guy who had said, Yeah, there's no justice for black people in this town. Key basically drove him out with this libel case. Most famously. He prosecuted a guy from New York, who was living in Georgetown, merely for having a trunk full of anti slavery tracts. Key accused him of seditious libel and inciting slaves and blacks to revolt. And he tried to turn this case into a massive Political piece. I think because he wanted to use it to boost his own political career. Are you willing, gentlemen? he said in his closing speech. To abandon your country, to permit it to be taken from you and occupied by the abolitionist, according to whose taste it is to associate and amalgamate with the negro. Anyway. Key lost this case. Actually the bloke went free. And he ended up humiliated and his political ambitions were punctured. So when you put that alongside the issue of the context of the war of eighteen twelve. I think it is actually it is per it becomes more and more plausible. How is he distinguishing between the slave and the hiring? The hireling could be collaborators, paid collaborators. Okay, so white collaborators. So The Nation magazine, li very liberal journal. Key's message to the blacks fighting for freedom was unmistakable. We will hunt you down and the search will leave you in terror because when we find you, your next stop is the gloom of the grave. So this is the twenty first century by a lot of kind of liberal writers. I mean, I think there's enough ambiguity though for listeners to make up their own minds. So some people may reject all of this and say, No, no, no, he's obviously just talking about using the rhetoric of the American Revolution or something. I mean, I I suppose that It sounds like this is a man who thinks a lot about slavery and liberty. And I guess it has many different shades of meaning. Often particularly in America, those shades of meaning are in direct conflict with each other. So perhaps he couldn't resolve those ambiguities. That's very fair minded verdict, actually. Anyway, back to the song itself. Obviously it strikes a chord in the War of eighteen twelve and it never really fades from view afterwards. So There's an account from a diarist, uh George Templeton Strong, he's writing about New York City in eighteen thirty seven. A lot of tipsy loafers are just going past, screaming out the star spangled banner at the top of their lungs and in all sorts of diabolical discords. But it sounds gloriously. It's a glorious thing altogether, words and music, no matter how it's mangled. I mean it often is mangled though, isn't it? 'Cause it's so difficult to sing. Exactly. It is mangled. And it's also mangled because then at this point people are often changing the words. So people would play the song at Fourth of July celebrations and things. And it was well known enough for people to start parodying it. And to produce political variations. So there's a temperance version, very popular in the mid nineteenth century. Oh, who has not seen by the dawn's early light some poor bloated drunkard to his home weekly reeling? That'd be a great anthem. Both sides in the civil war claim. That's really interesting. So the Confederates have their own flag, of course. They're not gonna celebrate the star spag or banner. Or are they? Because they see him as one of their own. A man of Maryland, which is a border state. A slaveholder. The Richmond Examiner, eighteen sixty one. Let us never surrender to the North the noble song the Star Spangled Banner. It is southern in origin and sentiments in poetry and song. Well they shouldn't have abolished the flag then. But they do have a star spangled banner of their own. I suppose they do, yeah. But not the Not the no. But it's still not the national anthem. Towards the end of the nineteenth century it starts to become a little bit more formalised, a bit more institutionalised. The US Naval Academy starts playing it morning and evening in eighteen eighty nine when they raise and lower the flag. In eighteen ninety two. the commander of Fort Meade in South Dakota. orders that it's played at the retreat, he tell the state governor. uh the state governor says oh what a brilliant idea. I'll get the state militia to play it um whenever we you know the retreat and whatnot. He tells the secretary of war, the secretary of war says, Oh, I that I love that idea. Let's get every army post to play it every evening. And the flag itself by this point is becoming a sacred relic too. So it stayed in the family of the bloke who was the commander of the Ford. Armisted. And this is the big one, not the not the one that actually got shot at. No, this is the huge one. And and one reason the the huge one is so battered is because the family would give away pieces. To friends. They would say, Would you like a piece of the Star Spangled Banner from the f from the song? And so the flag ends up having lots of holes in it. And actually the Smithsonian when it got hold of the um flag in nineteen oh seven. Try to buy back some of the hole. Oh, so they didn't blame it on the red coats, or I'm sure they did blame it on the red coats. Anyway, then there's a huge um upsurge of patriotism during the first world war. In nineteen sixteen, Woodrow Wilson we talked about him in our Ku Kirk's Klan episodes, of course, another southerner, perhaps not coincidentally. He directs the display to all military occasions. One complication though at this point, there is no standard arrangement. So Wilson gets the US Bureau of Education to sort one out. They get a series of experts. One of them is a quite famous American composer, John Phillips Susa. And they Uh version. Can I just ask, do we know whether over the nineteenth century and up to this point Whether any eyebrows are raised over that. Um the Hiling and slave. Comments. Do they just not pay any attention to it? I don't think people massively pay attention to it. Not least because, as we will see later, there is a rival abolitionist version. Right, okay. They have complaints, and we will see in just a sec. People have a lot of objections to this as the anthem, but that is not one of the principal ones. And just one quick side note before we talk about how it becomes an anthem. It's already been played by the end of the nineteen ten at baseball. So it's first played at the World Series. In nineteen eighteen at Comiskey Park, the Chicago Cubs were hosting the Red Sox. And a game won a military band played this song, though it's not at this point the national anthem. And we heard it being played at a baseball game, didn't we, in uh November in LA. We did indeed. Yeah. Ver and very very exciting it was too. Very stirring, yeah. Yes, exactly. At the end of the First World War, the United States still does not have a national anthem. And this is probably a good point to just talk uh for a second. By national anthems more generally. Such a complicated topic, don't it? It is a massively complicated topic. Now we did our first national anthem episode back when we did a series on the French Revolution. And you took us through the history of the Marseilles. Yes. Which is sometimes described as one of the world as the world's first national anthem, though it's sort of Pete, doesn't it, with the subject of our next episode, which is God Save the King. So I in that episode on the Marseille's, I did describe it as the world's first national anthem, but I have now repented of that opinion. as we will be discussing in our next episode. Un call save the king. The must say is it's the first national song. the first national anthem. And people who find that intriguing and fascinating, do tune into the next episode. Got it all. So at the early twentieth century most countries don't have a national answer. The countries that do tend to be countries that have recently been invented. So Latin American countries above all. Argentina has one. Brazil has one, as we will find out. Peru has one. But in Europe they're seen as a bit tawdry, a bit gimmicky, uh by and large. And often the countries with national anthems, Britain and France aside. tend to be made up countries like Belgium or Italy. Conscious that have to invent an identity for themselves. But in the nineteen twenties you've got a lot of new countries so that are adopt anthems. United States doesn't want to be left out. There's a congressman again from Maryland, so Francis Scott Key's home state. John Charles Linthecom. And he introduces a bill again and again to make this the anthem, and he keeps losing. And the reason he keeps losing is not because of the words hireling and slave. It's because A British Melody Why would we have a British melody as our national anthem? Yeah, why would we have the English language as our Yes, exactly. Well, that's something on which American listeners might care to reflect. Um Pacifists and of course there are a lot of pacifists in the wake of the First World War don't like it because it celebrat. So that's a big. Biggest objection is musical. You've already mentioned this. People say It is just too high. The melody is weird. It's unsingable. And to delve for a moment into the world of musicology. The Star Spangled Banner demands a range of nineteen semitones, and even some professional singers are not capable of that range. And Dominic, what what exactly does that mean? Nineteen semi-tent. Some of members of the rest of his history club. Will be able to hear me explaining. Summit owns in a future bonus episode. I can't promise it it will come immediately. One day before the end of this podcast, I will undoubtedly be doing a a a bonus episode on this very subject. That is something for people to look forward to. Yeah. Definitely. And actually some of the critics combine all those in one. All those objections. So there's a Christian scientist called Augusta Emma Stetson. That's a great Mrs. Stetson. In June nineteen twenty two took out a massive advert in the New York Tribune with the headline The star spangled banner can never become our national anthem. And she says It has it it's violent, unsingable cadences can never express the spiritual ideals upon which the nation was based. Never has Congress and never will Congress legalize an anthem which sprang from the lowest qualities of human sentiment. God forbids it. And it's amazing that the all that the Highland Save stuff isn't even entering the equation here. No, not at all. And she doesn't even mention that. Now the thing is, they don't have to choose this, there are alternatives. All through the nineteenth century, probably the leading candidate had been another song. Hail Columbia. Hail Columbia had been composed for Washington's first inaugural as president in seventeen ninety. So there's that. But that's gone into decline a bit by the twentieth century. So that's not gonna win. Then by the nineteen twenties, the other big rival is America the beautiful. And this was written by an English literature professor called Catherine Lee Bates. She went on a trip to Colorado in the eighteen nineties, eighteen ninety three. She wrote this hymn of praise to the American landscape. If you look at the lyrics of America the Beautiful It's not very well known outside America, but Americans love it. quite generic and waffly, which is you know Yeah, there's a kind of craze for those kind of anthems in the late nineteenth century, isn't there? Yes, there is. They're all like that, actually. When you look at I mean we get to Brazil in a couple of weeks. Yeah. They're very kind of generic, a lot of these anthems. Anyway. America the beautiful. Consistently very popular. In the nineteen sixties there was uh quite a groundswell of support for scrapping the Star Spangled Banner and having America the beautiful instead. And people sa I've always said it's easier to sing, it's a better tune. You can do more fun things with it. We've got the wrong answer. Anyway. America the beautiful didn't win. The Star Spangled Banner Won precisely because of its military associations. So the lobby group, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, organized a petition. They got five million names. Congress approved it, and President Herbert Hoover in nineteen thirty one. signed it into law. Thoughts. It has never not been controversial. Obviously in the post war years, post second world war. The controversies were about interpretations of the anthem. I already mentioned some of them. At the nineteen sixty eight World Series, Jose Feliciano Puerto Rican singer and guitarist. played it, he did a kind of Latin jazz, slightly folky kind of interpretation. And people said it's terribly disrespectful, it's awful, blah blah blah blah blah. And the disrespect is because the same reverence that Americans display towards the flag. is now being applied towards the anthem. Is that right? Yeah, and that's something that actually I think Americans pa po some of our Americanists may not realise not all countries have the same attitude to their national anthem. So for example in Britain think it's fair fair to say that God saved the king. mean most people kind of laugh when they hear God save the King or indeed God save the Queen. Which we will be discussing in our next episode. Exactly. The the interpretations of it are seen as completely valid and unfair and people have fun with it. It's not a sacred relic. Another controversial moment of course, Jimi Hendrix's um I was about to say Jimmy Carter's guitar. I would bid money to see that. Yeah. PC and everything's card. It's cardigan. Yeah. Cardigan with an acoustic guitar. It's surrounded by peanuts, or people dressed as peanuts. I think it'll be absolutely group of peanuts. Jimi Hendrix did his guitar solo uh Woodstock, obviously in nineteen sixty nine. That was one of sixty renditions of the Sars Spangled Banner that um Hendricks gave in the late sixties. But he'd been in the army, hadn't he, so perhaps he could get away with it. The issue there is I think as of nineteen sixty eight and Jose Feliciano, it's bound up with Vietnam. It's seen as, you know, disrespectful, disrespectful to the flag. The Star Spangled Banner is playing at the Mexican Olympics in nineteen sixty eight when uh Tommy Smith and John Carlos do their famous Black Power salutes. In the middle ceremony. My favorite controversy, I don't know if you're familiar with this one, Tom. came at a a a rodeo in Salem, Virginia in two thousand and five. And the organisers of this rodeo had agreed to feature a visiting celebrity from the Republic of Kazakhstan. In Central Asia. preface his performance with the words with speech. We support your war of terror. May George Bush drink the blood of every single man, woman and child of Iraq. As I remember he that was greeted with applause and cheers, wasn't it? It was greeted with applause and cheers. And then to the usual tune he sang the uh The words. Kazakhstan is the greatest country in the world, all other countries are run by little girls. Kazakhstan number one exporter of potassium. Other Central Asian countries have infected. Have inferior potassium. And that was of course Sasha Baron Cohen playing Borat. And uh I think he knew exactly what he was doing. He'd done American history at Cambridge. He actually wrote his thesis on the civil rights movement, and he had the same supervisor As supervising my PhD. Oh, really? He learned from the best. Yeah. Yeah. So Borack, very controversial. But not the most. Controversial. take on the Star Spangled Banner, right? 'Cause um I guess not. There's an even more famous one that you alluded to at the start of this episode. Yeah, so this is in twenty sixteen. San Francisco forty niners are playing their third pre season game. Uh the quarterback Colin Capernick takes the knee during the anthem. And he says he wants to do it to protest police brutality towards African Americans. This kicks off this firestorm of argument. Kapernick played out the season, but he then became a free agent at the end of the season and no team. signed him. Basically no team wanted to touch him. And he sued the NFL. But the case was settled out of court. And the the whole gesture of the taking the knee obviously became a huge thing. after George Floyd was killed in twenty twenty, so people may remember British citizens may remember Uh Kia Starmer. Yes, and Angela Rayner. And Angela Rayner. They posted a photograph of themselves very solemnly taking the knee in Starmer's House of Commons office. And meanwhile activists in the United States actually toppled the statue of Francis Scott Key. Golden Gate Park. So that statue had stood in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco since eighteen eighty seven. And it has subsequently been replaced with Three hundred and fifty black steel figures. represent the Africans that were on the first slave ship to Virginia. in sixteen nineteen. And presumably that is because the controversy around the Star Spangled Banner has now banded from the fact that it is simply the national anthem of the United States. Yeah. And that people are now more aware of the context in which it was written, I suppose. Yes. And I think if you are on the sort of uh if you're on the left or if you're on the left of that particular argument the sort of slightly reflex thing to say now is oh it's an anthem that glorifies slavery. And I think As we've established. There is at least ambiguity there. I mean I think it's actually I think it's impossible to be Yeah, no one knows what was in Francis Scott's head. When he when he wrote that. I mean my personal view is Well first of all. It's normal. American listeners should not c you know, they can do what they like. It's it's n no business of ours what anthem they have. don't think it's entirely groundless to say that there's a slavery connection. We know that Key owned slaves we know that he was a very, very determined foe of abolitionism. Personally, I think his text probably is aimed at slaves who are trying to escape. and are helping the British. However. I think we've generally always had the position on the show that you can separate the art from the artist. I think this is actually quite a nice example because we've already mentioned Temperance activists, right there in. But so did abolitionists. So this is the irony. The very people that Francis Scott Key was trying to suppress actually wrote their own version of his anthem. It was in eighteen forty four. It was in the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator. And it was by an activist called E A Atley. And it ran as follows. Oh, say do you hear, at the dawn's early light, the shrieks of those bondsmen whose blood is now streaming from the merciless lash? while our banner in sight with its stars mocking freedom. is fitfully gleaming. Do you see the backs bare? Do you mark every score of the whip of the driver traced channels of gore? and say doth our star spangled banner yet wave. Oh the land of the free and the home of the brave. So kind of bitterly ironic final lines. Now, obviously I think it would be dem deranged f to suggest that Americans might like to adopt that text rather than the one they have. But it's nevertheless worth bearing in mind that Key's text is not the only text of that anthem. And Anthems often tell more than one story, and as we'll see in the rest of the series. Even the most bombastic song can tell very surprising. unexpected stories. And we'll be hearing one of those next time, won't we? We will, because we will be looking at God Save the King. the anthem of both England and Scotland, who Qualified for. Finals. And The story of that song is actually framed by many of the same issues and controversies that we've been talking about with reference to the star spangled banner. And then after that we will be looking at the German, the Dutch, the Brazilian, and the South African national anthems. Members of the Rest is History Club, of course, can get immediate access to all of them. So if you like national anthems, I mean this is your lucky day. National anthems. We've got 'em. But for now, Dominic, thanks so much for that. Goodbye, everyone. Bye bye. Yeah Hello everybody. Now As those of you who are good children will know. Here in Britain. On the twenty first of June. It's Father's Day. But not just here in Britain. It's also Father's Day on the twenty first of June in the United States. In Canada. and in the Republic of Ireland. So those are four countries that are united. Dads who love to listen to the rest is history. And that is why we are offering an amazing twenty five per cent. Father's Day. discount on the subscription price to the Rest is History Club because we are all heart. So treat the Peter the Great in your own life this Father's Day to early access to full series. You guess say early access that you get that with the membership. 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