John Skelton

John Skelton (?1460-1529). Courtesy My Poetic Side.

Rev. John Skelton (also known as John Shelton) (?1460 - 21 June 1529) was an English poet who has been claimed to be the 1st English Poet Laureate..

Life

Overview

Skelton, born in Norfolk, was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, of both of which he was crowned Poet Laureate, and perhaps held the same office under the King. He was appointed tutor to Henry VIII, and notwithstanding his sharp tongue, enjoyed some favor at Court. In 1498 he entered the Church, and became rector of Diss in his native county. Hitherto he seems to have produced some translations only, but about this time he appears to have struck upon the vein which he was to work with such vigor and popularity. He turned his attention to abuses in Church and State, which he lashed with caustic satire, conveyed in short doggerel rhyming lines peculiar to himself, in which jokes, slang, invectives, and Latin quotations rush out pell-mell. His best works in this line are "Why come ye not to Court?" and "Colin Clout," both directed against the clergy, and the former against Wolsey in particular. Piqued at his inconstancy (for Skelton had previously courted him) the Cardinal would have imprisoned him, had he not taken sanctuary in Westminster, where he remained until his death. Other works of his are The Tunning (brewing) of Elynor Rummynge, a coarsely humorous picture of low life, and the tender and fanciful "Death of Philip Sparrow," the lament of a young lady over her pet bird killed by a cat.

Youth and education

Skelton is variously asserted to have belonged to a Cumberland family and to have been a native of Diss in Norfolk. He is said to have been educated at Oxford. He certainly studied at Cambridge, and he is probably the "one Scheklton" mentioned by William Cole (MS. Athen. Cantabr.) as earning his M.A. degree in 1484.

Career

In 1490 Caxton writes of him, in the preface to The Boke of Eneydos compyled by Vyrgyle, in terms which prove that Skelton had already won a reputation as a scholar.

But I pray mayster John Skelton, late created poete laureate in the unyversite of Oxenforde, to oversee and correct this sayd booke ... for him I know for suffycyent to expowne and englysshe every dyffyculte that is therin. For he hath late translated the epystlys of Tulle, and the boke of dyodorus siculus, and diverse other works ... in polysshed and ornate termes craftely ... I suppose he hath drunken of Elycons well.

The laureateship referred to was a degree in rhetoric. Skelton received in 1493 the same honour at Cambridge, and also, it is said, at Louvain. He found a patron in the pious and learned countess of Richmond (Henry VII's mother), for whom he wrote Of Lyle the Peregrynacioun, a translation (now lost) of Guillaume de Deguilleville's Pelerinage de la vie humaine.

An elegy "Of the death of the noble prince Kynge Edwarde the forth," included in some of the editions of the Mirror for Magistrates, and another on the death of Henry Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland, are among his earliest poems. .

In the last decade of the century he was appointed tutor to Prince Henry (afterwards Henry VIII). He wrote for his pupil a lost Speculum principis, and Erasmus, in dedicating an ode to the prince in 1500, speaks of Skelton as "unum Britannicarum literarum lumen ac decus."

In 1498 Skelton was successively ordained sub-deacon, deacon and priest. He seems to have been imprisoned in 1502, but no reason is known for his disgrace. 2 years later he retired from regular attendance at court to become rector of Diss, a benefice which he retained nominally till his death.

As rector of Diss he caused great scandal among his parishioners, who thought him, says Anthony a Wood, more fit for the stage than for the pew or the pulpit. He was secretly married to a woman who lived in his house, and he had earned the hatred of the Dominican monks by his fierce satire. Consequently he came under the formal censure of Richard Nix, the bishop of the diocese, and appears to have been temporarily suspended. After his death a collection of farcical tales, no doubt chiefly, if not entirely, apocryphal, gathered round his name — The Merie Tales of Skelton.

During the rest of the century he figured in the popular imagination as an incorrigible practical joker . His sarcastic wit made him some enemies, among them Sir Christopher Garnesche or Garneys, Alexander Barclay, William Lilly and the French scholar, Robert Gaguin (?1425–1502) . With Garneys he engaged in a regular "flyting," undertaken, he says, at the king's command, but Skelton's 4 poems read as if the abuse in them were dictated by genuine anger.

Earlier in his career he had found a friend and patron in Cardinal Wolsey, and the dedication to the cardinal of his Replycacion is couched in the most flattering terms . But in 1522, when Wolsey in his capacity of legate dissolved convocation at St Paul's, Skelton put in circulation the couplet:

Gentle Paul, laie doune thy sweard

For Peter of Westminster hath shaven thy beard.

In Colyn Cloute he incidentally attacked Wolsey in a general satire on the clergy, but "Speke, Parrot" and "Why come ye nat to Courte?" are direct and fierce invectives against the cardinal who is said to have more than once imprisoned the author.

To avoid another arrest Skelton took sanctuary in Westminster Abbey. He was kindly received by the abbot, John Islip, who continued to protect him until his death on 21 June 1529.

The inscription on his tomb in the neighbouring church of St Margaret's described him as vales pierius.

Writing

In his Garlande of Laurell Skelton gives a long list of his works, only a few of which are extant . The garland in question was worked for him in silks, gold and pearls by the ladies of the countess of Surrey at Sheriff Hutton Castle, where he was the guest of the duke of Norfolk . The composition includes complimentary verses to the various ladies concerned, and a good deal of information about himself.

But it is as a satirist that Skelton merits attention.

The Bowge of Court is directed against the vices and dangers of court life. He had already in his Boke of the Thre Foles drawn on Alexander Barclay's version of the Narrenschiff of Sebastian Brant, and this more elaborate and imaginative poem belongs to the same class. Skelton, falling into a dream at Harwich, sees a stately ship in the harbor called the Bowge of Court, the owner of which is the Dame Saunce Pere. Her merchandise is Favour; the helmsman Fortune; and the poet, who figures as Drede (modesty), finds on board Favell (the flatterer), Suspect, Harvy Hafter (the clever thief), Dysdayne, Ryotte, Dyssymuler and Subtylte, who all explain themselves in turn, until at last Drede, who finds they are secretly his enemies, is about to save his life by jumping overboard, when he wakes with a start . Both of these poems are written in the 7-lined Chaucerian stanza.

It is in an irregular metre of his own that his most characteristic work was accomplished.

"The Boke of Phyllyp Sparowe," the lament of Jane Scroop, a schoolgirl in the Benedictine convent of Carowe near Norwich, for her dead bird, was no doubt inspired by Catullus. It is a poem of some 1400 lines and takes many liberties with the formularies of the church. The digressions are considerable. We learn what a wide reading Jane had in the romances of Charlemagne, of the Round Table, The Four Sons of Aymon and the Trojan cycle.

Skelton finds space to give his opinion of Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate. He seems fully to have realized Chaucer's value as a master of the English language. Gower's matter was, he said, "worth gold," but his English he regarded as antiquated.

The verse in which the poem is written, called from its inventor "Skeltonical," is here turned entirely to whimsical use. The lines are usually 6-syllabled, but vary in length, and rhyme in groups of 2, 3, 4 and even more . It is not far removed from the old alliterative English verse, and well fitted to be chanted by the minstrels who had sung the old ballads.

For its comic admixture of Latin Skelton had abundant example in French and Low Latin macaronic verse. He makes frequent use of Latin and French words to carry out his exacting system of frequently recurring rhymes. This breathless, voluble measure was in Skelton's energetic hands an admirable vehicle for invective, but it easily degenerated into doggerel.

His own criticism is a just one: "For though my ryme be ragged, Tattered and jagged, Rudely rayne beaten, Rusty and moughte eaten, It hath in it some pyth."

Colyn Cloute represents the average country man who gives his opinions on the state of the church . There is no more scathing indictment of the sins of the clergy before the Reformation. He exposes their greed, their ignorance, the ostentation of the bishops and the common practice of simony, but takes care to explain that his accusations do not include all and that he writes in defence of, not against, the church. He repeatedly hits at Wolsey even in this general satire, but not directly.

"Speke, Parrot" has only been preserved in a fragmentary form, and is exceedingly obscure. It was apparently composed at different times, but in the latter part of the composition he openly attacks Wolsey. In "Why come ye nat to Courte?" there is no attempt at disguise. The wonder is not that the author had to seek sanctuary, but that he had any opportunity of doing so. He rails at Wolsey's ostentation, at his almost royal authority, his overbearing manner to suitors high and low, and taunts him with his mean extraction. This scathing invective was not allowed to be printed in the cardinal's lifetime, but it was no doubt widely circulated in MS. and by repetition.

The charge of coarseness regularly brought against Skelton is based chiefly on "The Tunnynge of Elynoure Rummynge," a realistic description in the same meter of the drunken women who gathered at a well-known ale-house kept by Elynour Rummynge at Leatherhead, not far from the royal palace of Nonsuch.

"Skelton Laureate against the Scottes" is a fierce song of triumph celebrating the victory of Flodden. "Jemmy is ded And closed in led, That was theyr owne Kynge," says the poem; but there was an earlier version written before the news of James IV's death had reached London. This, which is the earliest singly printed ballad in the language, was entitled "A Ballade of the Scottysske Kynge," and was rescued in 1878 from the wooden covers of a copy of Huon de Bordeaux.

"Howe the douty Duke of Albany, lyke a cowarde knight" deals with the campaign of 1523, and contains a panegyric of Henry VIII. To this is attached an envoi to Wolsey, but it must surely have been 2 (Spence, Anecdotes, p. 87)

Miscellaneous

Skelton also wrote 3 plays, only one of which survives. Magnificence is s paradigm example of the morality play. It deals with the same topic as his satires, the evils of ambition; its moral, "how suddenly worldly wealth doth decay," being a favorite one with him. Thomas Warton in his History of English Poetry described another piece Nigramansir, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1504, and dealing with simony and the love of money in the church; but no copy is known to exist, and some suspicion has been cast on Warton's statement.

Very few of Skelton's productions are dated, and their titles are here necessarily abbreviated.

• Wynkyn de Worde printed the Bowge of Court twice .
• Divers Balettys and dyties solacious devysed by Master Skelton Laureat, and Skelton Laureate agaynste a comely Coyslroune... have no date or printer's name, but are evidently from the press of Richard Pynson, who also printed Replycacion against certain yang scalers, dedicated to Wolsey.
• The Garlande or Chapelet of Laurell was printed by Richard Faukes (1523); *Magnificence, A goodly interlude, probably by John Rastell about 1533, reprinted (182') for the Roxburghe Club .
• Hereafter foloweth tke Bake of Phyllyp Sparowe was printed by Richard Kele (1550?), Robert Toy, Antony Kitson (156o ?), Abraham Veale (1570?), John Walley, John Wyght (1560?) .
• Hereafter foloweth certaine bokes compyled by mayster Skelton... including "Speke, Parrot," "Ware the Hawke," "Elynoure Rumrnynge " and others, was printed by Richard Lant (1550?), John King and Thomas March (1565?), by John Day (1560) .
• Here-after foloweth a litle boke called Colyn Cloute and Hereafter ... why come ye nat to Courte? were printed by Richard Kele (1550?) and in numerous subsequent editions .
• Pithy, plesaunt and profitable workes of moister Skelton, Poete Laureate:. Nowe collected and newly published was printed in 1568, and reprinted in 1736 *A scarce reprint of Elinour Rummin by Samuel Rand appeared in 1624.

• See The Poetical Works of Jahn Skelton; with notes and some account of the author and his writings, by Rev. Alexander Dyce (2 volumes, 1843)
• A selection of his works was edited by W.H . Williams (London, 1902).

Critical introduction

by John Churton Collins

Skelton's claims to notice lie not so much in the intrinsic excellence of his work as in the complete originality of his style, in the variety of his powers, in the peculiar character of his satire, and in the ductility of his expression when ductility of expression was unique. His writings, which are somewhat voluminous, may be divided into two great classes — those which are written in his own peculiar measure, and which are all more or less of the same character, and those which are written in other measures and in a different tone. To this latter class belong his serious poems, and his serious poems are now deservedly forgotten. Two of them, however, The Bowge of Court, a sort of allegorical satire on the court of Henry VIII, and the Morality of Magnificence, which gives him a creditable place among the fathers of our drama, contain some vigorous and picturesque passages which have not been thrown away on his successors.

As a lyrical poet Skelton also deserves mention. His ballads are easy and natural, and though pitched as a rule in the lowest key, evince touches of real poetical feeling. When in the other poems his capricious muse breaks out into lyrical singing, as she sometimes does, the note is clear, the music wild and airy. The Garlande of Laurell for example contains amid all its absurdities some really exquisite fragments.

But it is as the author of The Boke of Colin Clout, Why come ye nat to Court, Ware the Hawke, The Boke of Philipp Sparowe, and The Tunnyng of Elinore Rummyng, that Skelton is chiefly interesting. These poems are all written in that headlong voluble breathless doggrel which, rattling and clashing on through quick-recurring rhymes, through centos of French and Latin, and through every extravagant caprice of expression, has taken from the name of its author the title of Skeltonical verse.

"Colin Clout" is a general attack on the ignorance and sensuality of the clergy. The second is a fierce invective against Cardinal Wolsey, and the third is directed against a brother clergyman who was, it appears, in the habit of flying his hawks in Skelton’s church. These 3 poems are all in the same strain, as in the same measure — grotesque, rough, intemperate, but though gibbering and scurrilous, often caustic and pithy, and sometimes rising to a moral earnestness which contrasts strangely with their uncouth and ludicrous apparel.

  ‘Though my rime be ragged,
Tatter’d and jagged,
Rudely raine-beaten,
Rusty and moth-eaten;
If ye take wel therewith,
It hath in it some pith.’

And the attentive student of Skelton will soon discover this. Indeed he reminds us more of Rabelais than any author in our language. In The Boke of Philipp Sparowe he pours out a long lament for the death of a favourite sparrow which belonged to a fair lay nun. This poem was probably suggested by Catullus’ Dirge on a similar occasion. In Skelton, however, the whole tone is burlesque and extravagant, though the poem is now and then relieved by pretty fancies and by graceful touches of a sort of humorous pathos. In The Tunnyng of Elinore Rummynge his powers of pure description and his skill in the lower walks of comedy are seen in their highest perfection. In this sordid and disgusting delineation of humble life he may fairly challenge the supremacy of Swift and Hogarth. But Skelton is, with all his faults, one of the most versatile and one of the most essentially original of all our poets. He touches Swift on one side, and he touches Sackville on the other.

Critical reputation

Illustration of the hold Skelton had on the public imagination is supplied from the stage. A play (1600) called Scogan and Skelton, by Richard Hathway and William Rankins, is mentioned by Henslowe. In Anthony Munday's Downfall of Robert, earl of Huntingdon, Skelton acts the part of Friar Tuck, and Ben Jonson in his masque, The Fortunate Isles, introduced "Skogan and Skelton in like habits as they lived."

By the end of the 16th century he was a "rude rayling rimer" (Puttenham, Arte of English Poesie), and at the hands of Pope and Warton he fared even worse. Aexander Pope said: "Skelton's poems are all low and bad, there is nothing in them that is worth reading;" and –

Authors, like Coins, grow dear as they grow old;
It is the rust we value, not the gold.
Chaucer's worst ribaldry is learned by rote,
And beastly Skelton Heads of Houses quote.

Pope found it necessary to add a footnote explaining who "beastly Skelton" was:

Poet Laureat to Hen. 8, a Volume of whose Verses has been lately reprinted, consisting almost wholly of Ribaldry, Obscenity, and Billingsgate Language.

Recognition

Skelton frequently signed himself "regius orator" and poet-laureate, but there is no record of any emoluments paid in connection with these dignities, although the Abbe du Resnel, author of Recherches sur les poetes couronnez, asserts that he had seen a patent (1513-1514) in which Skelton was appointed Poet Laureate to Henry VIII.

Skelton was buried in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster Abbey. His grave is unmarked.

Skelton's poems "To Mistress Margery Wentworth" and "To Mistress Margaret Hussey" were included in the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900.

In popular culture

5 of Skelton's 'Tudor Portraits', including "The Tunnying of Elynour Rummyng," were set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams in or around 1935. Although Williams changed the text here and there to suit his music, the sentiments are well expressed. The other 4 poems are "My pretty Bess," "Epitaph of John Jayberd of Diss," "Jane Scroop (her lament for Philip Sparrow)," and "Jolly Rutterkin." The music is rarely performed, although it is immensely funny, and captures the coarseness of Skelton in an inspired way.

Publications

Poetry

• Here Begynneth a Lytell Treatyse Named the Bowge of Courte. Westminster, UK: Printed by Wynkyn de Worde, circa 1499).
• A Ballade of the Scottisshe Kynge (anonymous). London: Printed by Richard Faques, 1513.
• The Tunning of Elinor Rumming. London: Printed by Wynkyn de Worde, circa 1521
  • republished as Elynour Rummin, the Famous Ale-Wife of England. London: Printed by Bernard Alsop for Samuel Rand, 1624). 

• A Ryght Delectable Tratyse vpon a Goodly Garlande or Chapelet of Laurell. London: Printed by Richard Faukes, 1523). 

• Skelton Laureate Agaynste a Comely Coystrowne. London: Printed by John Rastell, circa 1527. 

• Here Folowythe Diuers Balettys and Dyties Solacyous. London: Printed by John Rastell, circa 1528. 

• Honorificatissimo, Amplissimo, ... A Replycacion Agaynst Certayne Yong Scolers . London: Richard Pynson, circa 1528. 


Posthumous

• Magnyfycence: A goodly interlude and a mery. Southwark, UK: Peter Treveris for John Rastell, circa 1530. 

  • Magnificence: A goodly interlude and a merry (edited by John S. Farmer). {London?]: Tudor Facsimile Texts (#43), 1910.
• Here After Foloweth a Lytell Boke Called Collyn Clout. London: Thomas Godfrey, circa 1531. 

• Here After Foloweth the Boke of Phyllyp Sparowe. London:Robert Copland for Richard Kele, circa 1545. 

• Here After Foloweth a Lytell Boke, Whiche Hath to Name, Why Come Ye Nat to Courte. London: Printed by Robert Copland for Richard Kele, circa 1545. 

• Here Begynneth a Lytell Treatyse Named the Bowge of Courte. Westminster, UK: Printed by Wynkyn de Worde, circa 1499).
• The Tunning of Elinor Rumming. London: Isaac Dalton for W. Bonham, 1718. 

• The Tunning of Elinor Rumming in The Harleian Miscellany, volume 1. London: Printed for Thomas Osborne, 1744, pp. 402-410. 

  • The Tunning of Elinor Rumming in The Harleian Miscellany, volume 1. London: John White, John Murray, & John Harding 1808, pp. 415-422.
• [https//archive.org/details/voxpopulivoxdeic00skel Vox Populi, Vox Dei: A complaint of the comons against taxes]. London: G. Woodfall, 1821.

• The Poetical Works of John Skelton (edited by Alexander Dyce). (2 volumes) London: Thomas Rodd, 1843.
 Volume I, [https//archive.org/details/poeticalworkswit02skeluoft Volume II].
  • The Poetical Works of Skelton and Donne, with a memoir of each (edited by Alexander Dyce). (2 volumes), Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1855. Volume I: Skelton
• “A Ballade of the Scottysshe Kynge” in Athenaeum, 2790 (16 April 1881): 325. 

• “A Ballade of the Scottysshe Kynge” (edited by John Ashton). London: Elliot Stock, 1882. 

• “A Ballade of the Scottysshe Kynge” in A Century of Ballads (edited by John Ashton). London: Elliot Stock, 1887, pp. xiii-xvii. 

• Skelton: A selection from the poetical works (edited by W.H. Williams). London: Isbister, 1902.
• Magnyfycence, A moral play (edited by Robert Lee Ramsay). Early English Text Society, no. 48 (1908). 

• “A Laureate Poem by Skelton,” (edited by C.C. Stopes). Athenaeum, 4514 (2 May 1914): 625. 

• “Skelton’s Speculum Principis” (edited by Frederick M. Salter), Speculum, 9 (January 1934): 25-37. 

• “A Ballad of the Scottish King,” in The Common Muse (edited by de Sola Pinto and Allan Edwin Rodway). (London: Chatto and Windus, 1957), pp. 32-33. 

• “A Ballad of the Scottish King” (edited by Ashton). Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1969. 


Collected editions

• Pithy Pleasaunt and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Nowe Collected and Newly Published. London: Printed by Thomas Marsh, 1568. 

• Select Works of the British Poets, from Chaucer to Jonson, with Biographical Sketches (edited by Robert Southey). London: Longman, Rees, 1831, pp. 61-75. 

• The Harmony of Birds (edited by John Payne Collier). London: Percy Society, 1843.
• The Poetical Works (edited by Alexander Dyce). (2 volumes), London: Thomas Rodd, 1843
  • revised edition (3 volumes), Boston: Little, Brown, 1856. 

• The Poetical Works of Skelton and Donne, with a Memoir of Each. (2 volumes), Boston: Houghton Mifflin, circa 1855. 

• Poems by John Skelton, edited by Richard Hughes (London: William Heinemann, 1924). 
*The Garland of Laurell, in English Verse Between Chaucer and Surrey (edited by Eleanor Prescott Hammond). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1927, pp. 342-367. 

• Skelton: Poems by John Skelton, edited by Roland Gant (London: Grey Walls Press, 1949). 

• John Skelton: A selection from his Poems (edited by Vivian de Sola Pinto). New York: Grove, 1950. 

• The Complete Poems of John Skelton Laureate (edited by Philip Henderson). London: Dent; New York: Dutton, 1959. 

• John Skelton: Poems (edited by Robert S. Kinsman). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press (Clarendon Medieval and Tudor Series), 1969. 

• Pithy, Pleasant, and Profitable Works of Master Skelton, Poet Laureate, Now Collected and Newly Published. Menston, UK: Scolar Press, 1970. 

• John Skelton: Selected Poems (edited by Gerald Hammond). Manchester, UK: Carcanet New Press, 1980. 

• Magnificence (edited by Paula Neuss). The Revels Plays. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1980; Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980). 

• John Skelton: The complete English poems (edited by John Scattergood). Harmondsworth, UK & New York: Penguin (Penguin English Poets), 1983. 

• The Book of the Laurel (edited by F.W. Brownlow). Newark, NJ: University of Delaware Press, 1990; London, UK & Mississauga, ON: Associated University Presses, 1990. 

• “The Latin Writings of John Skelton” (edited by David R. Carlson) in Studies in Philology, 88 (Fall 1991): 1-125.

 Translated

• Titus Calpurnius Siculus, Bibliotheca Historia of Diodorus Siculus [photographic facsimile of 1488 manuscript], New York: Modern Language Association, 1925. 

• Siculus, Bibliotheca Historia of Diodorus Siculus (edited by Frederick M. Salter and H.L.R. Edwards), Early English Text Society, volumes 233, 239. London: Oxford University Press 1956, 1957.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

Poems by John Skelton

John Skelton's "Speke Parott"

1. To Mistress Margaret Hussey

See also

• List of British poets

English Poet Laureate

Succeeded by: Edmund Spenser

References

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Skelton, John". Encyclopædia Britannica. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 1, 2018.

External links

Poems

• "To Mistress Margery Wentworth".
• "Merry Margaret: To Mistress Margaret Hussey".
• "Ware the Hawk."
• Skelton, John (1460?-1529) (2 poems) at Representative Poetry Online
• Skelton in The English Poets: An anthology: "A Lullabye," Extract from The Bowge of Courte: "Picture of Riot", Extract from The Garlande of Laurell: "To Maystress Margaret Hussey", Extract from Colyn Cloute
• John Skelton at PoemHunter (27 poems)
• John Skelton at Poetry Nook (84 poems)

Books

• Works by John Skelton at Project Gutenberg
• John Skelton at Amazon.com

Audio / video

• John Skelton poems at YouTube
• John Skelton at LibriVox

About

• John Skelton (English poet) in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• John Skelton at NNDB
• "Beastly Skelton." in The Spectator, 1939.
• John Skelton (1460-1529) at Luminarium.
• John Skelton at Poets' Graves

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Original article is at "Skelton, John"

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