She is married to Vice Adm Timothy Laurence. The Princess Royal (Princess Anne) was the Queen's second child and only daughter.They have three children: Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis He is married to the Princess of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall and Cambridge (Catherine).

Following the death of the Queen, he became the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall and retained the title of Duke of Cambridge. Prince William is the elder son of King Charles and his first wife, Diana, Princess of Wales.

Quite fittingly, Elgar’s orchestration is performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, 100 years after its premiere to celebrate English wins at this year’s Commonwealth Games, which take place in Birmingham – a mere 24 miles from the composer’s birthplace in Worcester.Ī large puppet depicting Elgar on his beloved bicycle is pushed by a person dressed as a cello at the opening ceremony of the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium. Today, the hymn is best known in its 1922 orchestration by Edward Elgar, written in tribute to Parry who had died four years earlier in 1918. King George V was monarch at the time and, as legend has it, remarked that he even preferred Parry’s melody to the actual national anthem for Britain. Hubert Parry turned the poem’s four verses into a melody, which he titled ‘Jerusalem’, in 1916. The lyrics to ‘Jerusalem’ come from an 1808 poem by William Blake, ‘And did those feet in ancient time’, inspired by the legend that Jesus may have once visited Glastonbury, in Somerset.

Hubert Parry, composer of ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘I Was Glad’. In a 2010 poll, voters chose between the three potential anthems to put ‘Jerusalem’ in first place with 52 percent of the vote, followed by ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ with 32 percent and ‘God Save the Queen’ with 12 percent. This is why you might hear ‘God Save the Queen’ at the opening of an England football game, but ‘Jerusalem’ ahead of a cricket match.Īt the Commonwealth Games, however, Team England decided to put the question out to the public. Why is ‘Jerusalem’ played as England’s national anthem?Įngland doesn’t have its own official national anthem, and several popular British hymns are in the runnings, most commonly ‘Jerusalem’, ‘God Save the Queen’, and Elgar’s ‘ Land of Hope and Glory’.

What is the commonwealth of england