A web-based edition of early seventeenth-century political poetry from manuscript sources. It brings into the public domain over 350 poems, many of which have never before been published.

Oi3 Our digby digd’e but digd’e in vaine


Notes. The only known version of this poem exists in the unpublished section of the news-diary of John Rous, where it is transcribed alongside libels and other documents on events in the 1624 Parliament.


Our digby1 digd’e but digd’e in vaine

for powdering Pope & king of Spaine

& though he dig’de with might & maine

to make a matche twixte us & Spaine

take away S what doth remaine

5

but England matched unto paine

& S is but a hissing piece

a noise of serpents, voice of geese

& geese they are being kept under

but give them leave they’ll roare like thunder.

10

Source. BL Add. MS 28640, fol. 149v

Oi3






1   digby: John Digby, Earl of Bristol and English ambassador to Spain. Digby was widely characterized as an agent of Spanish ambitions and chief English architect of the Spanish Match. <back>