The Poetical Works of John Skelton (Vol. 1&2). John Skelton
now com and do right,
This hunderd yere scantly
A man kowd not aspy
[x]
That Right dwelt vs among,
And that was the more wrong:
Arcebit vulpes, &c.
Right shall the foxis chare,[6]
The wolvis, the beris also,
That wrowght have moche care,
And browght Englond in wo:
They shall wirry no mo,[7]
By extort trechery:
Ne tanti regis, &c.
Of this our noble king
The law they shall not breke;
They shall com to rekening;
No man for them wil speke:
The pepil durst not creke
Theire grevis to complaine,
They browght them in soche paine:
Ecce Platonis secla, &c.
Therfor no more they shall
The commouns ouerbace,
That wont wer ouer all
Both lorde and knight to face;[10]
For now the yeris of grace
And welthe ar com agayne,
That maketh England faine.[11]
Rediit jam pulcher Adonis, &c.
Adonis of freshe colour,
Of yowthe the godely flour,
Our prince of high honour,
[xi]
Our paves,[12] our succour,
Our king, our emperour,
Our Priamus of Troy,
Our welth, our worldly joy;
Anglorum radians, &c.
Vpon vs he doth reigne,
That makith our hartis glad,
As king moost soueraine
That ever Englond had;
Demure, sober, and sad,[13]
And Martis lusty knight;
God save him in his right!
Amen.
Bien men souient. [14]
Per me laurigerum Britonum Skeltonida vatem.
[4] A lawde and prayse made for our souereigne lord the kyng] Such (in a different handwriting from that of the poem) is the endorsement of the MS., which consists of two leaves, bound up in the volume marked B. 2. 8 (pp. 67–69), among the Records of the Treasury of the Receipt of the Exchequer, now at the Rolls House.—Qy. is this poem the piece which, in the catalogue of his own writings, Skelton calls “The Boke of the Rosiar,” Garlande of Laurell, v. 1178, vol. i. 408?
[5] stede] i.e. place.
[6] chare] i.e. chase, drive away (see Prompt. Parv. i. 70. Camden Soc. ed.).
[7] mo] i.e. more.
[8] wrote] i.e. root.
[9] Rosary] i.e. Rose-bush.
[10] face] See Notes, vol. ii. 216.
[11] faine] i.e. glad.
[12] paves] i.e. shield (properly, a large shield covering the body).
[13] sad] i.e. grave—discreet.
[14] Bien men souient] These words are followed in the MS. by a sort of flourished device, which might perhaps be read—“Deo (21ͦ) gratias.”
SOME ACCOUNT
OF
SKELTON AND HIS WRITINGS.
John Skelton[15] is generally said to have been descended from the Skeltons of Cumberland;[16] but there is some reason to believe that Norfolk was his native county. The time of his birth, which is left to conjecture, cannot well be carried back to an earlier year than 1460.
The statement of his biographers, that he was educated at Oxford,[17] I am not prepared to contradict: but if he studied there, it was at least after he had gone through an academical course at the sister university; for he has himself expressly declared,
“Alma parens O Cantabrigensis,
…
… tibi quondam carus alumnus eram;”
adding in a marginal note, “Cantabrigia Skeltonidi laureato primam mammam eruditionis pientissime propinavit.”[18] Hence it is probable that the poet was the “one Scheklton,” who, according to Cole, became M.A. at Cambridge in 1484.[19]
Of almost all Skelton’s writings which have descended to our times, the first editions[20] have perished; and it is impossible to determine either at what period he commenced his career as a poet, or at what dates his various pieces were originally printed. That he was the author of many compositions which are no longer extant, we learn from the pompous enumeration of