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Fletcher is not alluding to events realistically in The Purple Island; it is very much in the pastoral-idyll mode. The 1816 edition of the poem (The purple island, a poem : by Phineas Fletcher. With the critical remarks of the late Henry Headley ... and a biographical sketch by William Jaques. London : Printed for Burton and Briggs, 1816) says that in choosing two Maylords Fletcher is alluding to himself and his brother, also a poet; the lines "Well could they pipe and sing, but yet their strains / Were only known unto the silent wood" therefore refer to the brothers' early poetical efforts. Mike Heaney Bodleian Library [log in to unmask]