Perhaps Scogan presumed upon the liberties allowed him by the King; for we are told that his pranks at court became so boisterously intolerable, that he was at last exiled, and forbidden to return on English soil, upon pain of death. He went to France, thence came back with his shoes full of the soil of Picardy, and he claimed impunity, on the ground that he was not standing on English land. This sort of story is told of so many jesters, that I leave its acceptance or rejection to the decision of my readers. We come again to facts, when we encounter Scogan dwelling for awhile at Jesus College, Cambridge; and there is, probably, foundation for the story which represents him travelling in Normandy. In the collection of ‘Scogan’s Jests,’ to which I have before alluded, as being collected by merry Andrew Borde, of Pevensey--that learned and mirthful doctor who Latinized his name into “Perforatus,” we are informed,--“How Scogan made the country-people of Normandy offer their money to a dead man’s head.” “Upon a time when Scogan lacked maintenance, and had gotten the displeasure of his former acquaintance by reason of his crafty dealing and unhappy tricks, he bethought himself in what manner he might get money with a little labour. So, travelling up into Normandy, he got him a priest’s gown, and clothed himself like a scholar, and afterwards went into a certain churchyard, where he found the skull of a dead man’s head, the which he took up and made very clean, and after bore it to a goldsmith, and hired him to set it in a stud of silver. Which being done, he departed to a village there by, and came to the parson of the church, and saluted him, and then told him, that he had a relic, and desired him to do so much for him as to show it unto the parish, that they might offer to it; and withal promised the parson that he should have one-half of the offerings. The parson, moved with covetousness, granted his request, and so, upon the Sunday following, told his parishioners thereof, saying, that there was a certain religious scholar come to the town, that had brought with him a precious relic; and that he that would offer thereunto should have a general pardon for all his forepassed sins; and that the scholar was there present himself, to show it to them. With that, Scogan went up into the pulpit, and showed them the relic that he had; and said to them that the head spoke to him, and bade him that he should build a church over it; and that the money that the church should be builded withal should be well-gotten. But when the people came to offer unto it, Scogan said unto them, ‘All you women who have been faithless to your husbands, I pray you sit still, and come not to offer, for the head bade me that I should not receive your offerings.’ Whereupon, the poor men and their wives came thick and threefold to this offering; and there was not a woman but she offered liberally, because that he had said so; and he gave them the blessing with the head.