Note 122 — SOME ACCOUNT OF SKELTON AND HIS WRITINGS.
Reading edition
“Vuestmonasterii tandem, captiuitatis suæ tempore, mortuus est: & in D. Margaritæ sacello sepultus, cum hac inscriptione alabastrica: Johannes Skeltonus, uates Pierius, hic situs est. Animam egit 21 die Junii, anno Dn̄i 1529, relictis liberis.” Bale, Script. Illust. Brit., p. 652. ed. 1559. See also Pits (De Illust. Angl. Script., p. 703. ed. 1619) and Fuller (Worthies, Norfolk, p. 257. ed. 1662), who give Joannes Sceltonus vates Pierius hic situs est as the whole of Skelton’s epitaph. Weever, however (Fun. Momum., p. 497. ed. 1631), makes “animam egit, 21 Junii 1529” a portion of it, and in a marginal note substitutes “ejicit” for “egit,” as if correcting the Latinity!! So too Wood (Ath. Oxon. i. 52. ed. Bliss.), who places “ejicit” between brackets after “egit,” and states (what the other writers do not mention) that the inscription was put on the tomb “soon after” Skelton’s death.
In the Church-Wardens Accompts of St. Margaret’s, Westminster (Nichols’s Illust. of Manners and Expences, &c. 4to. p. 9), we find this entry;
£. s. d.
“1529. Item, of Mr. Skelton for viii tapers 0 2 8”
The institution of the person who succeeded Skelton as rector of Diss is dated 17th July: see first note on the present Memoir.