[44] See the two subscriptions already cited, p. xiv.; and vol. i. 132, 206, vol. ii. 25.—“Clarus & facundus in utroque scribendi genere, prosa atque metro, habebatur.” Bale, _Script. Illust. Brit._ &c. p. 651. ed. 1559. “Inter Rhetores regius orator factus.” Pits, _De Illust. Angl. Script_. p. 701. ed. 1619. “With regard to the _Orator Regius_,” says Warton, “I find one John Mallard in that office to Henry the eighth, and his epistolary secretary,” &c. _Hist. of E. P._ ii. 132 (note), ed. 4to. [45] Register _Hill_ 1489-1505, belonging to the Diocese of London. [46] 1st Octr.: see Sandford’s _Geneal. Hist._ p. 475. ed. 1707. [47] See the _Garlande of Laurell_, vol. i. 408. [48] Henry was created Duke of York 31st Octr. an. 10. Hen. vii. [1494]; see Sandford’s _Geneal. Hist._ p. 480. ed. 1707. See also _The Creation of Henry Duke of Yorke_, &c. (from a Cottonian MS.) in Lord Somers’s _Tracts_, i. 24. ed. Scott. [49] _Biblioth_. p. 676. ed. 1748. [50] i. e. well. [51] i. e. tutor: see Notes, vol. ii. 193.—When ladies attempt to write history, they sometimes say odd things: e. g. “It is affirmed that Skelton had been tutor to Henry [viii.] in some department of his education. _How probable it is_ that the corruption imparted by this ribald and ill-living wretch laid the foundation for his royal pupil’s grossest crimes!” _Lives of the Queens of England by Agnes Strickland_, vol. iv. 104. [52] Fourth Poem _Against Garnesche_, vol. i. 129. [53] _Garlande of Laurell_, vol. i. 410.—After noticing that while Arthur was yet alive, Henry was destined by his father to be archbishop of Canterbury, “it has been remarked,” says Mrs. Thomson, “that the instructions bestowed upon Prince Henry by his preceptor, Skelton, were calculated to render him a scholar and a churchman, rather than an enlightened legislator.” _Mem. of the Court of Henry the Eighth_, i. 2. But the description of the _Speculum Principis_, quoted above, is somewhat at variance with such a conclusion. The same lady observes in another part of her work, “To Skelton, who in conjunction with Giles Dewes, clerk of the library to Henry the Seventh, had the honour of being tutor to Henry the Eighth, this king evinced his approbation,” ii. 590, and cites in a note the Epistle to Henry the Eighth prefixed to Palsgrave’s _Lesclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse_, 1530, where mention is made of “the synguler clerke maister Gyles Dewes somtyme instructour to your noble grace in this selfe tong.” Though Dewes taught French to Henry, surely it by no means follows that he was “his tutor in conjunction with Skelton:” a teacher of French and a tutor are very different. [54] _Biblioth._ p. 676. ed. 1748. [55] _Erasmi Opera_, i. 1214, 1216, ed. 1703.—The Ode is appended to Erasmus’s Latin version of the _Hecuba_ and _Iphigenia in Aulide_ of Euripides, printed by Aldus in 1507; and in that edition the second line which I have quoted is found with the following variation,