No biblical text was of more vivid importance to the England of 1739 than the story of Saul and David. The country had suffered tectonic regime change four times in the previous century, had executed the Lord’s anointed, substituted another with a foreign bloodline, been engaged for 50 years in war with a Catholic superpower bent on its extinction, and was still on the brink of civil war; the parallels with Israelite history were described weekly from pulpits across the land.

It was time for the nation’s domestic composer, George Frideric Handel, to invent a wholly new musical format, English oratorio, to reflect and embody the country’s conflicts. Now audiences across the country have a chance to see Saul, as a film of Glyndebourne’s 2015 production tours cinemas.

To make things more interesting, Handel’s librettist was no pet of the Hanoverians, but a Nonjuror, devout Anglican supporter of the Stuarts, Charles Jennens. And while his text is no Jacobite rallying call – and the panic of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s 1745 rising was just around the corner – Jennens’ treatment would have sent very clear signals.

The Bible reading for 30 January, the feast of Charles the Martyr instituted after the Restoration, was precisely David’s lamentation over Saul and Jonathan, an episode that – vastly expanded – forms the haunting peroration.