Evidence from verses found on purportedly older drinking vessels has convinced some scholars that what is now the national anthem began as a Jacobite drinking song, protesting Williamite or Georgian rule and celebrating the king ‘soon to reign over us’. Yet it is likelier that these vessels were themselves crafted in 1744–5 after the song became famous in London, as an immediate Jacobite attempt to appropriate an instantaneously popular song. Even more than ‘Rule, Britannia!’, this tune has been parodied ever since: especially potent versions were sung by supporters of the French Revolution, victims of the Peterloo Massacre (1819), and defenders of Queen Caroline (1820).