Soldiers of the King
Soldiers of the King is a song written and composed by Leslie Stuart. The song is often sung and published as "Soldiers of the Queen" depending on the reigning monarch at the time.
The tune was originally composed by Stuart as a march celebrating the opening of the Manchester Ship Canal. The lyrics were added at a later date and the title changed. The song was then interpolated in the musical comedy An Artist's Model (1895).
The song served as the regimental (quick) march of the Queen's Regiment, 1966–1992. In 1992 the Queens Regiment and Royal Hampshires became The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment who now use the song Soldiers of the Queen as their regimental song (at the end of the song the Regiment then sing "Farmer's boy" to show their links to R Hampshire) It is also the regimental march of the combined 2nd and 14th Light Horse Regiment, Queensland Mounted Infantry {2/14LHR(QMI)}; and of the Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians), the second most senior of Canada's Cavalry Regiments. The song was sung by the public attending a farewell function in Brisbane, Australia the day before the departure of the 1st contingent QMI, to the Boer War on 1 November 1899.
It was used as the theme to the film, Breaker Morant. BBC Radio 4 comedy programme The Harpoon, a show lampooning boys' magazines from Britain's Empire days of the 20th century, also used the piece as its opening theme—which is harshly interrupted mid-stanza by a page-turn.
The song has no connection to "The Soldiers of Our Queen", a quite different song which appears in the Gilbert and Sullivan opera Patience.
Lyrics
- Britons once did loyally declaim
- About the way we ruled the waves.
- Every Briton's song was just the same
- When singing of her soldier-braves.
- All the world had heard it--
- Wondered why we sang,
- And some have learned the reason why--
- But we're not forgetting it,
- And we're not letting it
- Fade away and gradually die,
- Fade away and gradually die.
- So when we say that England's master
- Remember who has made her so
- It's the soldiers of the Queen, my lads
- Who've been, my lads, who've seen, my lads
- In the fight for England's glory lads
- Of her world wide glory let us sing:
- And when we say we've always won
- And when they ask us how it's done
- We'll proudly point to every one
- Of England's soldiers of the Queen.[1]