court rivals, flyting, champion, challenger, tournament, courtly
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115
between setting out to entertain and expressing genuine hostility. Bawcutt describes flyting as a form of “aggressive play” comparable with the tournament; another aggressive sport into which court rivals might channel their animosity. Like the tournament this courtly flyting might be construed as a display of national prowess. Skelton certainly has pretensions to being his king’s champion. He portrays himself as the defending titleholder and Garnish as an unworthy challenger for that title, but the flyting also arises out of circumstances that suggest a grudge match that has been regulated and diffused by royal intervention. The scenario Skelton establishes appears to be that Garnish has slandered him and that the king has commanded that they should make an entertainment out of settling their differences. Skelton begins,
Sithe ye haue me chalyngyd, M[aster] Garnesche,
Ruduly revilyng me in the kynges noble hall,
Soche an odyr chalyngyr cowde me no man wysch,
But yf yt war Syr Tyrmagant that tyrnyd with out nall;
For Syr Frollo de Franko was neuer halfe so talle.
But sey me now, Syr Satrapas, what autoryte ye haue
In your chalenge, Syr Chystyn, to cale me knaue? (I. ll.1-7)
Garnish had been knighted in 1513 and here Skelton snipes at his adversary’s upstart class pretensions, portraying him as a comic knight and buffoon who is not up to the heroic task of engaging him in a verse tournament.
208
In his second response, Skelton makes a direct comparison between the flyting and the tournament: “To turney or to tante with me ye ar to fare to seke” (II. l.37). Like the competitor in the tiltyard Skelton seems conscious that he might be called upon to direct his invective energy towards more serious matters, as he felt himself to be upon numerous occasions, regardless of his not being commissioned officially to write anything else for considerable time to come.
209
Indeed, in his fourth and final flyting Skelton complains
208 See, for instance, Helen Stearns, ‘John Skelton and Christopher Garnesche’, MLN, 43 (1928),518-23 (p.522) and Pollet (1971), p.76.
209 Walker (1988), p.49.
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