4. ‘THE GREAT CHRONICLE’ ON SKELTON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

c. 1510


From ‘The Great Chronicle of London’ (Guildhall Library MS 3313), a history of London in verse and prose from 1189 to 1512, generally held to be the work of Robert Fabian (d. 1513); as edited by A. H. Thomas and I. D. Thornley (London, 1938), p. 361. The passage was probably written c. 1510. The ‘Cornysh’ mentioned is the poet William Cornish (d. 1524); ‘mastyr moor’ is St Thomas More (1478–1535). The passage is an attack on John Baptist de Grimaldis (the ‘cursid Caytyff’), a henchman of Henry VII's advisors, Empson and Dudley.


Omost cursid Caytyff, what shuld I of the wryte
Or telle the particulers, of thy cursid lyffe
I trow If Skelton, or Cornysh wold endyte
Or mastyr moor, they myght not Inglysh Ryffe
Nor yit Chawcers, If he were now in lyffe
Cowde not In metyr, half thy shame spelle
Nor yit thy ffalshod, half declare or telle