 He first appears about 1500 in "Cock Lorel's Boat", and is mentioned in Robert Copland's "The Highway to the Spitalhouse" (1535).He is credited with approving John Awdesley's "The Fraternity of Vagabonds", (1561), in which he is given as the creator of the Twenty Five Orders of Knaves, reproduced in Thomas Harman's "Warning for Common Cursitors" and many other works of rogue literature.There is no record of any real individual on whom he was based.