The apoplectic comments of Harvey Proctor and Nile Gardiner about EU flags being waved during the singing of Rule, Britannia! at the Last Night of the Proms are worthy of Private Eye’s Sir Herbert Gussett (Brexiters outraged after crowds wave EU flag at Last Night of the Proms, 10 September). They also demonstrate their authors’ ignorance both of the origins of the song and of the reasons for its inclusion in the BBC Proms.
Rule, Britannia! was composed as the finale of a masque commissioned in 1740 by Frederick, Prince of Wales. He, like the rest of the Hanoverians in this country, was both British and German. As well as heir to the British crown, he was also Prince Friedrich Ludwig of Hanover. In commissioning a masque on the growth of British naval power, he was simply positioning himself as the man of the future, to contrast himself with his hated father, George II, but he most certainly was not suggesting that Britain’s future lay in “going it alone”.
