"Colyn Cloute" represents the average country man who gives his opinions on the state of the church. It is an indictment of the sins of the clergy before the Reformation. He exposes their greed and ignorance, the ostentation of the bishops and the common practice of simony, taking care to explain the accusations do not include all and that he writes in defence of the church. He repeatedly, indirectly hits at Wolsey in this satire. "Speke, Parrot" has only been preserved in a fragmentary form, and is very obscure. It was apparently composed at different times, but in the latter part of the composition he openly attacks Wolsey. In "Why Come Ye nat to Courte?" there is no attempt at disguise. The wonder is not that Skelton had to seek sanctuary, but that he had any opportunity of doing so. He rails at Wolsey's ostentation, at his almost royal authority, his overbearing manner to suitors high and low, and taunts him with his mean extraction. This scathing invective was not allowed to be printed in the cardinal's lifetime, but no doubt widely circulated in manuscript and by repetition. The charge of coarseness regularly brought against Skelton is based chiefly on "The Tunnynge of Elynoare Rummynge," a realistic description in the same metre of the drunken women who gathered at a well-known ale-house kept by Elynour Rummynge at Leatherhead, not far from the royal palace of Nonsuch.