The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #163054   Message #3885841
Posted By: Joe Offer
30-Oct-17 - 11:53 PM
Thread Name: DTStudy:Sir Francis Drake / Eighty-Eight
Subject: ADD Version:Sir Francis Drake / Eighty-Eight
This is the version Palmer got from Halliwell. It's the same as what's in Palmer, but with old-style spelling. Google tells me it's on Page 18 of The Early Naval Battles of England by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps,
published in 1841 by the Percy Society.


SIR FRANCIS DRAKE: OR, EIGHTY-EIGHT.
[From MS. Harl. 791, fol. 59.]

IN eyghtye-eyght, ere I was borne,
As I can well remember,
In August was a fleete prepar'd,
The moneth before September.

Spayne, with Biscayne, Portugall,
Toledo and Granado,
All these did meete, and made a fleete,
And call'd it the Armado.

Where they had gott provision,
As mustard, pease, and bacon,
Some say two shipps were full of whipps,
But I thinke they were mistaken.

There was a litle man of Spaine,
That shott well in a gunn-a,
Don Pedro hight, as good a knight
As the Knight of the Sun-a.

King Phillip made him Admirall,
And charged him not to stay-a,
But to destroy both man and boy,
And then to runn away-a.

The King of Spayne did freet amayne,
And to doe yet more harme-a,
He sent along, to make him strong,
The famous prince of Parma.

When they had sayl'd along the seas,
And anchor'd uppon Dover,
Our Englishmen did bourd them then,
And cast the Spaniards over.

Our Queene was then att Tilbury,
What could you more desire-a?
For whose sweete sake, Sir Francis Drake
Did sett them all on fyre-a.

But let them looke about themselfes,
For if they come againe-a,
They shall be serv'd with that same sauce,
As they weere, I know when-a.