Anglo-Scots Flyting

Anglo-Scottish exchanges generally tend to be significantly more vituperative and colourful than their Anglo-French counterparts. Skelton, More’s contemporary, exhibits exactly the right temperament and enthusiasm for invective necessary for pyrotechnic exchanges of abuse. As Henry VIII’s self-appointed orator regius he took on the role of the king’s spokesperson and that of defender of the nation against its detractors with considerable relish. He claims to have been involved in the anti-French skimmington that drove Gaguin from the court of Henry’s father, ¹⁸⁵ and acted as a crusader repeatedly during his career against those he saw as threatening his nation’s reputation. In his Ballade of the Scottyshe Kynge and ‘Against Dundas’ he takes up the gauntlet against England’s other traditional enemy, Scotland, much as Laurence Minot had done as Edward III’s unofficial laureate, ¹⁸⁶ and towards the end of his career he also targets those he perceives as domestic enemies of the commonwealth such as Cardinal Wolsey and the Lutherans. As Hadfield claims, Skelton “set himself up as the poet of national harmony and

¹⁸⁴ The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, ed. John M. Headley et al, 15 vols (London and New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1963-97), V.i.: Responsio ad Lutherum, ed. John M. Headley, trans. Scholastica Mandeville (1969), p.334 and p.350 (text); p.335 and p.351 (trans.).

¹⁸⁵ Among the catalogue of his works that he provides in The Garland of Laurel is ‘The Recule ageinst Gaguyne’ (l.1187). Carlson (1988) believes that this poem is more likely to be an answer to Gaguin’s Compendium gestis francorum (1495), pp.287-8 (n.29).

¹⁸⁶ Aside from one Anglo-French exchange that appears to be associated with Minot, his invectives against the Scottish and French have been preserved as one-sided affairs. See James and Simons eds (1989), pp.97-8.