Britain's Glory

Britain's Glory is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1718 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second, 3rd ed., London. It was interpreted by Charles Bolton (website) in 1997 and published in Retreads Vol.7. Originally proper this version is a 4 Couple Longways dance with the 3s, 4s improper. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 2413. The minor set lasts 32 bars. It is in the key: D Major.

Playford writes:

Note: Each Strain is to be play'd twice over.

The First Man and 2d Woman take both Hands and turn quite round, then first Man cast off below the 2d Man and the 2d Wo. cast up above the first Wo. at the same Time The 2d Man and first Wo. do the same after them The first Men Hey with the 2d and 3d Men, the first Wo. Hey with the 2d and 3d. We. at the same Time, till all comes into their Places again The the first Cu. cast off and go Right-hands and Left quite round with the 2d. Cu. which brings the first Cu. into the 2d Cu. Places

Originally a triple minor

The animation plays at 120 counts per minute normally, but the first time through the set the dance will often be slowed down so people can learn the moves more readily. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color, however the border of each dancer indicates what role they currently play so the border color may change each time through the minor set.

The dances of Charles Bolton (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license by the CDSS Online Library.
An online description of the dance may be found here.

A11-8In fours: 1st corners set, two hand turn and cast left into neighors' places (who move to 1st corners' places)
A21-8New 1st corners, the same: set, turn, cast but ending so that middles face while ends face partner
B11-4Ends facing partner, middles facing neighbor: right gypsy, turn to face original neighbor and change by left
5-8That again: right gypsy, left change back to places
B21-2Ends two hand turn half
3-4Ends cast to middle, middles lead out
5-8New middles face partner, three changes of rights and lefts as new ends back to back

If you find what you believe to be a mistake in this animation, please leave a comment on youtube explaining what you believe to be wrong. If I agree with you I shall do my best to fix it.

If you wish to link to this animation please see my comments on the perils of youtube. You may freely link to this page, of course, and that should have no problems, but use one of my redirects when linking to the youtube video itself:
https://www.upadouble.info/redirect.php?id=BritainsGlory

< Prev Top Next >

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1997 by Charles Bolton. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.

This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023,2024 by George W. Williams V
Creative Commons License My work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Most of the dances have more restrictive licensing, see my notes on copyright, the individual dance pages should mention when some rights are waived.