He enjoyed for a time the patronage of Wolsey, but afterward joined his enemies and attacked him violently.

He was _laureated_: this does not mean, as at present, that he was poet laureate of England, but that he received a degree of which that was the title.
His works are direct delineations of the age.

Among these are "monodies" upon _Kynge Edwarde the forthe_, and the _Earle of Northumberlande_.

He corrects for Caxton "The boke of the Eneydos composed by Vyrgyle." He enters heartily into numerous literary quarrels; is a reformer to the extent of exposing ecclesiastical abuses in his _Colin Clout_; and scourges the friars and bishops alike; and in this work, and his "Why come ye not to Courte ?" he makes a special target of Wolsey, and the pomp and luxury of his household.

He calls him "Mad Amelek, like to Mamelek" (Mameluke), and speaks Of his wretched original And his greasy genealogy.
He came from the sank (blood) royal That was cast out of a butcher's stall.
This was the sorest point upon which he could touch the great cardinal and prime minister of Henry VIII.
Historically considered, one work of Skelton is especially valuable, for it places him among the first of English dramatists.