The King's Consort, Robert King
James Bowman, countertenor
Gillian Fisher, soprano
Tessa Bonner, soprano
Rogers Covey-Crump, tenor
John Mark Ainsley, tenor
Michael George, bass

00:00 I. Ouverture
04:27 II. Who can from joy refrain, this gay, / This pleasing, shining, wond’rous day? /
For tho’ the sun has all / His summer’s glories on, / This day has brighter splendours far/ From a little rising star.
09:40 III. A Prince of glorious race descended / At his happy Birth attended / With rosy, smiling hours, to show / He will golden days bestow.
13:14 IV. The Father brave as e’er was Dane / Whose thund’ring sword has thousands slain / And made him o’er half Europe reign.
14:43 V. The Graces in his Mother shine / Of all the Beauties, Saints and Queens / And Martyrs of her line. / She’s great, let Fortune smile or frown, / Her virtues make all hearts her own: / She reigns without a Crown.
16:44 VI. Sound the Trumpet and beat the warlike Drum; / The Prince will be with laurels crown’d / Before his manhood comes. / Ah! how pleas’d he is and gay, / When the Trumpet strikes his ear! / His hands like shaking lilies play / And catch at ev’ry spear.
19:14 VII. If now he burns with noble flame, / When grown, what will he do? / From Pole to pole he’ll stretch his fame / And all the world subdue. / Then Thames shall be Queen / Of Tyber and Seine, / Of Nilus, of Indus, and Ganges: / And, without foreign aid, / Our fleets be obey’d / Wherever the wide ocean ranges.

Artwork: William, Duke of Gloucester by John Smith, after Sir Godfrey Kneller. ca. 1693

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