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.
Notes. This punning epigram on Buckingham’s 1627 expedition to the Ile de Ré is commonly attributed to William Drummond.
“Of the Isle of Rhees”
Charles would yee Prevaile your foes, thine better Lucke
Send forth some Drake and keep at home the Ducke.1
Source. NLS MS 2062, fol. 220r
Other known sources. Drummond 2.245
Oii6
1 Send forth some Drake...the Ducke: this line depends on a number of puns. “Drake” is a male duck, a type of cannon, and the surname of the Elizabethan naval hero Sir Francis Drake. The “Ducke”, effeminized and unmilitary, is a pun for the “Duke”, Buckingham. <back>