John Skelton seems to have been imprisoned in 1502, but no reason is known for his disgrace.

He retires two years later from regular attendance at court to become rector of Diss, a benefice which he will retain nominally until his death.

Skelton frequently signs himself "regius orator" and poet-laureate, but there is no record of any emoluments paid in connection with these dignities, although the Abbé du Resnel, author of Recherches sur les poètes couronnez, asserts that he had seen a patent (1513–1514) in which Skelton was appointed poet-laureate to Henry VIII.

As rector of Diss he causes great scandal among his parishioners, who think him, says Anthony Wood, more fit for the stage than for the pew or the pulpit.

He is secretly married to a woman who lives in his house, and he has earned the hatred of the Dominican monks by his fierce satire.

Consequently he comes under the formal censure of Richard Nix, the bishop of the diocese, and appears to have been temporarily suspended.

After his death a collection of farcical tales, no doubt chiefly, if not entirely, apocryphal, will gather round his name—The Merie Tales of Skelton.

During the rest of the century he will figure in the popular imagination as an incorrigible practical joker.

His sarcastic wit makes him some enemies, among them Sir Christopher Garnesche or Garneys, Alexander Barclay, and the French scholar, Robert Gaguin, who lived from about 1425 to 1502.

With Garneys he engages in a regular "flyting," undertaken, he says, at the king's command, but Skelton's four poems read as if the abuse in them were dictated by genuine anger.

Skelton writes his Phyllyp Sparrowe, produced in about 1506, in characteristic short lines of colloquial English with varied numbers of syllables but two strong beats, end-rhymed in couplets, triplets, and sometimes quadruplets.

Skelton in his Garlande of Laurell gives a long list of his works, only a few of which are extant.

The garland in question was worked for him in silks, gold and pearls by the ladies of the Countess of Surrey at Sheriff Hutton Castle, where he was the guest of the duke of Norfolk.

The composition includes complimentary verses to the various ladies concerned, and a good deal of information about himself.

But it is as a satirist that Skelton merits attention.

The Bowge of Court is directed against the vices and dangers of court life.

He had already in his Boke of the Thre Foles drawn on Alexander Barclay's version of the Narrenschijf of Sebastian Brant, and this more elaborate and imaginative poem belongs to the same class.

Skelton, falling into a dream at Harwich, sees a stately ship in the harbor called the "Bowge of Court", the owner of which is the "Dame Saunce Pere".

Her merchandise is Favour; the helmsman Fortune; and the poet, who figures as Drede (modesty), finds on board F'avell (the flatterer), Suspect, Harvy Hafter (the clever thief), Dysdayne, Ryotte, Dyssymuler and Subtylte, who all explain themselves in turn, until at last Drede, who finds they are secretly his enemies, is about to save his life by jumping overboard, when he wakes with a start.

Both of these poems are written in the seven-lined Rhyme Royal, a Continental verse-form first used in English by Chaucer, but it is in an irregular meter of his own—known as "Skeltonics"—that his most characteristic work is accomplished.

Alexander Barclay, the first English writer to describe his work as satire, was born in about 1476.

His place of birth is matter of dispute, but William Bulleyn, who was a native of Ely, and probably knew him when he was in the monastery there, asserts that he was born "beyonde the cold river of Twede" (River Tweed, i.e. in Scotland).

His early life was spent at Croydon, but it is not certain whether he was educated at Oxford or Cambridge.

It may be presumed that he took his degree, as he uses the title of "Syr" in his translation of Sallust's Bellum Jugurthinum, and in his will he is called Doctor of Divinity.

From the numerous incidental references in his works, and from his knowledge of European literature, it may be inferred that he spent some time abroad.

Thomas Cornish, suffragan bishop in the diocese of Bath and Wells, and provost of Oriel College, Oxford, from 1493 to 1507, appointed him chaplain of the college of Ottery St Mary, Devon.

Here he writes his satirical poem, The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde, partly a translation from Sebastian Brant.

London-born Thomas More, the son of prominent English jurist John More and his wife Agnes (née Graunger), has been educated at St Anthony's School, considered one of London's finest schools.

More from 1490 to 1492 had served John Morton, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England, as a household page.

Morton, an enthusiastic supporter of the "New Learning" (now called the Renaissance), thought highly of the young More and, believing that More had great potential, had nominated him for a place at Oxford University (either in St. Mary's Hall or Canterbury College, both now gone).

More had begun his studies at Oxford in 1492, and received a classical education.

Studying under Thomas Linacre and William Grocyn, he had become proficient in both Latin and Greek.

More had left Oxford after only two years—at his father's insistence—to begin legal training in London at New Inn, one of the Inns of Chancery.

More became a student in 1496 at Lincoln's Inn, one of the Inns of Court, remained there until 1502, when he was called to the Bar.

According to his friend, theologian Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, More once seriously contemplated abandoning his legal career to become a monk Between 1503 and 1504, More lived near the Carthusian monastery outside the walls of London and joined in the monks' spiritual exercises.

Although he deeply admired their piety, More ultimately decided to remain a layman, standing for election to Parliament in 1504 and marrying Jane Colt the following year.

In spite of his choice to pursue a secular career, More will continue ascetical practices for the rest of his life, such as wearing a hair shirt next to his skin and occasionally engaging in flagellation A tradition of the Third Order of St. Francis honors More as a member of that Order on their calendar of saints.

Jane is five years, one month younger than her husband, quiet and good-natured.

Erasmus reported that More wanted to give his young wife a better education than she had previously received at home, and tutored her in music and literature.

The couple have had four children before Jane's death in 1511: Margaret, Elizabeth, Cicely, and John.

More within thirty days marries one of the many eligible women among his wide circle of friends, choosing a rich widow, Alice Harpur Middleton.

The speed of the marriage is so unusual that More has had to get a dispensation of the banns, which due to his good public reputation he had easily obtained.

Alice More lacks Jane's docility; Erasmus, however, calls their marriage happy.

Barclay’s The Ship of Fools is as popular in its English dress as it had been in Germany.

It is the starting-point of a new satirical literature.

In itself a product of the medieval conception of the fool who figured so largely in the Shrovetide and other pageants, it differs entirely from the general allegorical satires of the preceding centuries.

The figures are no longer abstractions; they are concrete examples of the folly of the bibliophile who collects books but learns nothing from them, of the evil judge who takes bribes to favor the guilty, of the old fool whom time merely strengthens in his folly, of those who are eager to follow the fashions, of the priests who spend their time in church telling "gestes" of Robin Hood and so forth.

Thus, the work is of interest as throwing light on the manners and customs of the times to which it refers.

The death of Barclay's patron in 1513 apparently puts an end to his connection with the west, and he becomes a monk in the Benedictine monastery of Ely.

In this retreat he probably writes his five eclogues, said to be the first English eclogues, which will be printed about 1518 by Wynkyn de Worde.

His style is stiff and his verse uninspired.