The anthem God Save the King first caught the public’s imagination after it was performed as an encore at a theatre in Drury Lane, London, in 1745. Rumours were arriving that a Scottish Jacobite army, in a revolt which took its name from the date, was about to descend on the south. It aimed to reimpose the Stuart dynasty, and subject the English to the “frightful horrors”, alleged, of Scottish, French and papal hegemony. That is what the Hanoverian George II and his patriotic Protestant people were to be saved from – if the prayers of the theatregoers were to be answered – by divine intervention. Fear of being invaded by Scots is nothing new, south of the border. Nor is the political impact of a consequential rise in English patriotism. Whether such visceral