I realise, a little late, that people not raised in England probably don’t
know the story on which Sir Francis Doyle based his poem. Here it is, from
the London Times of 1860: “Some Sikhs and a private of the Buffs (the
East Kent Regiment), having remained behind with the grog-carts, fell into
the hands of the Chinese. On the next morning they were brought before the
authorities and commanded to perform the kotow. The Sikhs obeyed; but
Moyse, the English soldier, declaring that he would not prostrate himself
before any Chinaman alive, was immediately knocked on the head, and his body
thrown on a dunghill.” This was during the Anglo-Chinese War of that year.
Here is a charming note on the poet, from Michael Turner’s anthology of
Victorian verse, Parlour Poetry:
SIR FRANCIS HASTINGS CHARLES DOYLE, second baronet (1810-1888), came of
military stock and most of his male relatives seem to have been colonels at
the very least. He went to Eton and Oxford, where, the D.N.B. [=
Dictionary of National Biography] reports, “his intercourse with Gladstone
became very intimate.” Called to the bar, he later received the appointment
of receiver-general of customs. To compensate perhaps for remaining a
civilian, he wrote stirring military ballads: “The Red Thread of Honour”
was translated into Pushtoo and “became a fovarite among the villagers on
the north-western frontier of India.” To crown his literary ambitions, he
was elected professor of poetry at Oxford in 1867.