021) years later he did to his daughter, Queen Mary; probably either D'Ewes or Andre trained his handwriting, which is a curious compromise between the clear and bold Italian style, soon to be adopted by well-instructed Englishmen, and the old English hieroglyphics in which more humbly educated individuals, including Shakespeare, concealed the meaning of their words.

But the most famous of Henry's teachers was the poet Skelton, the greatest name in English verse from Lydgate down to Surrey.

Skelton was poet laureate to Henry VII.

Court, and refers in his poems to his wearing of the white and green of Tudor liveries.[45] He celebrated in verse Arthur's creation as Prince of Wales and Henry's as Duke of York;[46] and before the younger prince was nine years old, this "incomparable light and ornament of British Letters," as Erasmus styles him, was directing Henry's studies.
Skelton himself writes .-- The honor of England I learned to spell, I gave him drink of the sugred well Of Helicon's waters crystalline, Acquainting him with the Muses nine.
[Footnote 40: This is an anonymous portrait of Henry at the age of eighteen months or two years belonging to Sir Edmund and Lady Verney.] [Footnote 41: Erasmus, _Epist._, p.

1182; _L.