born с 1460
died June 21, 1529, London, Eng.
English poet.
Appointed court poet to Henry VII in 1489, Skelton became a tutor and eventually an adviser to Henry VIII. In 1498 he took holy orders. He wrote political and religious satires in an individual poetic style of short rhyming lines, called Skeltonics. Among his poems are Bowge of Courte , satirizing life at court; Phyllyp Sparowe , lampooning the liturgical office for the dead; and Ware the Hawke , attacking an irreverent priest. In 1516 he wrote the first secular morality play in English, Magnyfycence . The satires Speke, Parrot (written 1521), Collyn Clout (1522), and Why Come Ye Nat to Courte? (1522) were directed against Cardinal Wolsey and humanist learning.