When Prince Henry was a boy of nine years old, Erasmus dedicated to him an ode De Laudibus Britanniæ, Regisque Henrici Septimi ac Regiorum Liberorum. The Dedication contains the following memorable encomium on Skelton; “Et hæc quidem interea tamquam ludicra munuscula tuæ pueritiæ dicavimus, uberiora largituri ubi tua virtus una cum ætate accrescens uberiorem carminum materiam suppeditabit. Ad quod equidem te adhortarer, nisi et ipse jamdudum sponte tua velis remisque (ut aiunt) eo tenderes, et domi haberes Skeltonum, unum Britannicarum literarum lumen ac decus, qui tua studia possit, non solum accendere, sed etiam consummare;” and in the Ode are these lines;
“Jam puer Henricus, genitoris nomine lætus,
Monstrante fonteis vate Skeltono sacros,
Palladias teneris meditatur ab unguibus arteis.”[55]
The circumstances which led to the production of this Ode are related by Erasmus in the following curious passage: “Is erat labor tridui, et tamen labor, quod jam annos aliquot nec legeram nec scripseram ullum carmen. Id partim pudor a nobis extorsit, partim dolor. Pertraxerat me Thomas Morus,[56] qui tum me in prædio Montjoii[57] agentem inviserat, ut animi causa in proximum vicum[58] expatiaremur. Nam illic educabantur omnes liberi regii, uno Arcturo excepto, qui tum erat natu maximus. Ubi ventum est in aulam, convenit tota pompa, non solum domus illius, verum etiam Montjoiicæ. Stabat in medio Henricus annos natus novem, jam tum indolem quandam regiam præ se ferens, h. e. animi celsitudinem cum singulari quadam humanitate conjunctam. A dextris erat Margareta, undecim ferme annos nata, quæ post nupsit Jacobo Scotorum Regi. A sinistris, Maria lusitans, annos nata quatuor. Nam Edmondus adhuc infans, in ulnis gestabatur. Morus cum Arnoldo sodali salutato puero Henrico, quo rege nunc floret Britannia, nescio quid scriptorum obtulit. Ego, quoniam hujusmodi nihil expectabam, nihil habens quod exhiberem, pollicitus sum aliquo pacto meum erga ipsum studium aliquando declaraturum. Interim subirascebar Moro, quod non præmonuisset; et eo magis, quod puer Epistolio inter prandendum ad me misso, meum calamum provocaret. Abii domum, ac vel invitis Musis, cum quibus jam longum fuerat divortium, Carmen intra triduum absolvi. Sic et ultus sum dolorem meum, et pudorem sarsi.”[59]
The mother of Henry the Seventh, the Countess of Richmond and Derby, is well known to have used her utmost exertions for the advancement of literature: she herself translated some pieces from the French; and, under her patronage, several works (chiefly works of piety) were rendered into English by the most competent scholars of the time. It is to her, I apprehend, that Skelton alludes in the following passage of the Garlande of Laurell, where he mentions one of his lost performances;
“Of my ladys grace at the contemplacyoun,
Owt of Frenshe into Englysshe prose,
Of Mannes Lyfe the Peregrynacioun,
He did translate, enterprete, and disclose.”[60]
According to Churchyard, Skelton was “seldom out of princis grace:”[61] yet among the Actes, Orders, and Decrees made by the King and his Counsell, remaining amongst the Records of the Court, now commonly called the Court of Requests, we find, under anno 17. Henry vii.; “10 Junii apud Westminster Jo. Skelton commissus carceribus Janitoris Domini Regis.”[62] What could have occasioned this restraint, I cannot even conjecture: but in those days of extra-judicial imprisonments he might have been incarcerated for a very slight offence. It is, however, by no means certain that the “Jo. Skelton” of the above entry was the individual who forms the subject of the present essay;[63] and it is equally doubtful whether or not the following entry, dated the same year, relates to the mother of the poet;
| (Easter term, 17. Henry vii.) | “Johanne Skelton vidue de regard. Domini Regis[64] | iij. li. vj. s. viij. d.” |
It has been already shewn that Skelton took holy orders in 1498.[65] How soon after that period he became rector of Diss in Norfolk, or what portion of his life was spent there in the exercise of his duties, cannot be ascertained. He certainly resided there in 1504 and 1511,[66] and, as it would seem from some of his compositions,[67] in 1506, 1507, and 1513; in the year of his decease he was, at least nominally, the rector of Diss.[68]
We are told[69] that for keeping, under the title of a concubine, a woman whom he had secretly married, Skelton was called to account, and suspended from his ministerial functions by his diocesan, the bloody-minded and impure Richard Nykke (or Nix),[70] at the instigation of the friars, chiefly the Dominicans, whom the poet had severely handled in his writings. It is said, too, that by this woman he had several children, and that on his death-bed he declared that he conscientiously regarded her as his wife, but that such had been his cowardliness, that he chose rather to confess adultery (concubinage) than what was then reckoned more criminal in an ecclesiastic—marriage.
It has been supposed that Skelton was curate of Trumpington near Cambridge[71] (celebrated as the scene of Chaucer’s Milleres Tale), because at the end of one of his smaller poems are the following words:
“Auctore Skelton, rectore de Dis.
Finis, &c. Apud Trumpinton scriptum[72] per Curatum ejusdem, quinto die Januarii Anno Domini, secundum computat. Angliæ, MDVII.”[73]
But the meaning evidently is, that the curate of Trumpington had written out the verses composed by the rector of Diss; and that the former had borrowed them from the latter for the purpose of transcription, is rendered probable by two lines which occur soon after among some minor pieces of our author;
“Hanc volo transcribas, transcriptam moxque remittas
Pagellam; quia sunt qui mea scripta sciunt.”[74]
Anthony Wood affirms that “at Disse and in the diocese” Skelton “was esteemed more fit for the stage than the pew or pulpit.”[75] It is at least certain that anecdotes of the irregularity of his life, of his buffoonery as a preacher, &c. &c. were current long after his decease, and gave rise to that tissue of extravagant figments which was put together for the amusement of the vulgar, and entitled the Merie Tales of Skelton.[76]
Churchyard informs us that Skelton’s “talke was as he wraet [wrote];”[77] and in