This poem was evidently called forth by a real event; but the name of the “hawking parson” has not transpired. According to Barclay, skill in hawking sometimes advanced its possessor to a benefice;
“But if I durst truth plainely vtter and expresse,
This is the speciall cause of this inconuenience,
That greatest fooles, and fullest of lewdnes,
Hauing least wit, and simplest science,
Are first promoted, and haue greatest reuerence,
For if one can flatter, and beare a Hauke on his fist,
He shalbe made Parson of Honington or of Clist.”
The Ship of Fooles, fol. 2. ed. 1570.
I may add, that afterwards, in the same work, when treating of indecorous behaviour at church, Barclay observes;