Scottish Country Dancing Dictionary

The Battle Of Trafalgar (Rose)

Scottish Country Dance Instruction

The Battle Of Trafalgar (Rose) 40 Bar Reel For 6 Couples In 2x3 Couple Side-By-Side Sets Keith Rose Eight by Thirty-Two 2014

1-8 1C, 2C and 3C dance Inveran Reels. (All dance reels of 3 up and down the set, 1C cross down to opposite sides on bar 1 and cross up, back to own sides on bar 5.)
while 4C 5C and 6C dance similarly. All finish in original places
9-12 1C, 2C and 3C set to partners and turn half way giving right hands, finishing with ladies behind partners, all facing across to second set.
while 4C 5C and 6C stand.
13-16 1M dances across to second set, passing 4M right shoulder and dancing clockwise around 4L to finish facing her,
while 1L follows and dances clockwise all the way around 4M who turns around to face 1L,. 4M is back to back with 1M.
while 2C and 3C dance similarly around 5C and 6C
17-20 All set and turn once round with the right hand.
21-24 4L, 1M, 4M and 1L dance half a reel of 4 across the set. On bars 23-24, 1M and 4M should pass right shoulder, NOT left, and on bar 24 1L and 4L should start to come in again from the sidelines to end right shoulder to right shoulder with 4M and 1M respectively.
while 2C with 5C and 3C with 6C dance similarly.
25-26 4C with 1C dance half right hands across
while 2C with 5C and 3C with 6C dance similarly.
27-28 1C, retaining right hands, turn right hand half way to 4C's original place in set 2 while 4M, followed by 4L dances across to 1C's original place in set 1
while 2C with 5C and 3C with 6C dance similarly.
Bar 29: 1C 2C and 3C set 1C and 2C cast, 3C lead up to top
while 4C 5C and 6C turn right
29-32 1C, 2C and 3C, in set 2, set to partners. 1C and 2C cast off one place, 3C, with right hands, lead up two places to the top of the set, All finish in promenade hold facing down the set, ladies on partner's left, in the order 3 1 2
while 4C, 5C and 6C in set 1, turn partner with right hand once round in 4 bars to finish in promenade hold facing up the set in the order 4 5 6.
33-40 All, with promenade hold, chase clockwise once round the set, 2C and 4C leading and following 6C and 3C respectively, to end 4 5 6 in the first set and 3 1 2 in the second set.

Repeat from new positions. Progression for 1st couple is: 1 5 2 6 3 4

(Dance crib compiled by the deviser Keith Rose, 2014)


Dance Notes

The dancers are arranged as two, side by side, 3 couple sets, i.e. 4M, 5M and 6M are back to back with 1L 2L and 3L.

Keith Rose's Crib Diagrams


Dance Instruction Videos

The Battle Of Trafalgar (Rose) - Scottish Country Dancing Instruction Video

Dance Information

Also see the dance The Battle Of Trafalgar (Chaney) by Clive Chaney.

This reel, The Battle Of Trafalgar (Rose), was devised by Keith Rose (published In "Eight by Thirty-Two", 2014) for a Scottish Dancing holiday to Conil de la Frontera on the Costa de la Luz, Spain which is about 8 miles from Cape Trafalgar.

The Battle of Trafalgar was fought on 21 October 1805 when Admiral Nelson attacked the larger combined French and Spanish fleets using a new strategy of attacking perpendicularly to the line of enemy ships.

The dancers are arranged as two, side by side, 3 couple sets, i.e. 4M, 5M and 6M are back to back with 1L 2L and 3L.

The first set, couples 1, 2 and 3 represents the English fleet, the second set with couples 4, 5 and 6 represents the French and Spanish fleet.

1-8 depict preparation for the battle and revue of the fleets.
9-16: The attack.
17-24: Fighting at close quarters.
25-32: End of the battle, chasing the vanquished and victory celebrations.
33-40: Return to port.

Music: Admiral Nelson. (A 4x64 Hornpipe recording was edited to 6x40).

(Dance information by the deviser, Keith Rose)


The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a naval engagement between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition (August-December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815).

As part of an overall French plan to combine all French and allied fleets to take control of the English Channel and thus enable Napoleon's Grande Armée to invade England, French and Spanish fleets under French Admiral Villeneuve sailed from the port of Cádiz in the south of Spain on 18 October 1805. They encountered the British fleet under Admiral Lord Nelson, recently assembled to meet this threat, in the Atlantic Ocean along the southwest coast of Spain, off Cape Trafalgar, near the town of Los Caños de Meca. Villeneuve was uncertain about engaging the British, and the Franco-Spanish fleet failed to organise fully. In contrast, Nelson was decisive, directing the British fleet into two columns sailing straight into the enemy to pierce its wavering lines.

In a particularly fierce battle, 27 British ships of the line fought 33 French and Spanish ships of the line. The lead ships of the British columns were heavily battered, with Nelson's flagship HMS Victory nearly disabled, but the greater experience and training of the Royal Navy overcame greater numbers. The Franco-Spanish fleet lost 22 ships while the British lost none. Nelson himself was shot by a French musketeer, and died shortly before the battle ended. Villeneuve was captured along with his flagship Bucentaure. He attended Nelson's funeral while a captive on parole in Britain. Admiral Federico Gravina, the senior Spanish flag officer, escaped capture with the remnant of the fleet. He died of his wounds five months later.

The victory confirmed the naval supremacy Britain had established during the course of the eighteenth century, and was achieved in part through Nelson's departure from prevailing naval tactical orthodoxy. Conventional battle practice at the time was for opposing fleets to engage each other in single parallel lines, in order to facilitate signalling and disengagement and to maximise fields of fire and target areas. Nelson instead arranged his ships into columns sailing directly towards and into the enemy fleets' line.

The Battle Of Trafalgar - Information Video

The Battle Of Trafalgar
"The Battle Of Trafalgar" J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851), Oil On Canvas, c. 1822-1824


Published in The Battle Of Trafalgar (Rose) by Keith Rose, also available as a .pdf The Battle Of Trafalgar (Rose) (Portable Document Format).
This page contains both original content, which is copyrighted, and excerpts from Wikipedia and other sources using the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Text from this original Battle Of Trafalgar article on Wikipedia.
Image copyright Art UK, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

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