John Skelton
born c.
1460
died June 21, 1529, London
Tudor poet and satirist of both political and
religious subjects whose reputation as an
English poet of major importance was restored
only in the 20th century and whose individual
poetic style of short rhyming lines, based on
natural speech rhythms, has been given the name
of Skeltonics.
His place of birth and childhood is unknown. He
was educated at the University of Cambridge and
later achieved the status of “poet laureate” (a
degree in rhetoric) at Oxford, Leuven (Louvain)
in the Netherlands (now in Belgium), and
Cambridge. This success and also his skill at
translating ancient Greek and Roman authors led
to his appointment in 1488 first as court poet
to Henry VII and later, in addition, as
“scolemaster” to the Duke of York (later Henry
VIII). In 1498 Skelton took holy orders and in
1502, when Henry became heir to the throne and
the royal household was reorganized, he became
rector of Diss, in Norfolk, a position he held
until his death, though from 1512 he lived in
London. In about 1512 Henry VIII granted him the
title of orator regius, and in this capacity
Skelton became a forthright adviser to the King,
in court poems, on public issues, and on church
affairs.
Little
of Skelton’s early work is known, but his
reputation was such that Desiderius Erasmus,
greatest figure in the northern Renaissance,
visiting England in 1499, referred to him as
“the incomparable light and glory of English
letters.” His most notable poem from his time at
court is Bowge of courte, a satire of the
disheartening experience of life at court; it
was not until his years at Diss that he
attempted his now characteristic Skeltonics. The
two major poems from this period are Phyllyp
Sparowe, ostensibly a lament for the death of a
young lady’s pet but also a lampoon of the
liturgical office for the dead; and Ware the
Hawke, an angry attack on an irreverent hunting
priest who had flown his hawk into Skelton’s
church. Skelton produced a group of court poems,
mostly satirical: A ballad of the Scottysshe
Kynge, a savage attack on the King’s enemies,
was written in 1513 after the Battle of Flodden;
and in the next year he entertained the court
with a series of “flyting” poems of mock abuse.
In 1516 he wrote the first secular morality play
in English, Magnyfycence, a political satire,
followed by The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummynge, a
portrayal of a drunken woman in an alehouse,
which, though popular, contributed largely to
Skelton’s later reputation as a “beastly” poet.
His three major political and clerical satires,
Speke Parrot (written 1521), Collyn Clout
(1522), and Why come ye nat to courte (1522),
were all directed against the mounting power of
Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, both in church and in
state, and the dangers—as Skelton saw them—of
the new learning of the Humanists. Wolsey proved
too strong an opponent to attack further, and
Skelton turned to lyrical and allegorical themes
in his last poems, dedicating them all to the
Cardinal himself. Skelton’s reputation declined
rapidly in a 16th-century England predominantly
Protestant in religion and Italianate in poetic
style. A new appreciation of his qualities,
however, emerged in the 20th century.
