During the rest of the century he figured in the popular imagination as an incorrigible practical joker. His sarcastic wit made him enemies, among them: Sir Christopher Garnesche or Garneys, Alexander Barclay, William Lilly and the French scholar, Robert Gaguin (c. 1425–1502). With Garneys he engaged in a regular "flyting," undertaken, he says, at the king's command, but Skelton's four poems read as if the abuse in them were dictated by genuine anger. Earlier in his career he found a friend and patron in Cardinal Wolsey, and the dedication to the cardinal of his "Replycacion" is couched in the most flattering terms. But in 1522, when Wolsey in his capacity of Papal legate dissolved convocation at St Paul's, Skelton put in circulation the couplet: