He is best known for his role in the posthumous attempts to publish, and then for trying to suppress, several of Milton's State Papers, including De Doctrina Christiana.
[2][4] However, Elzevir was reluctant to do so, and (as he later reported in a letter, dated 1676-11-20, to Sir Joseph Williamson, then Secretary of State) after he had received the manuscripts contacted Skinner in Cambridge to tell him that he was unwilling to publish them, given their contents.
He wrote an ornate and lengthy letter in Latin, which has since been lost, to Pepys on 1676-07-05, in which he noted that after four years he had still not been fully elected Fellow of Trinity.
I found him much surprised, and yet at the same time slighting any constraining orders from the Superior of his Colledge, or any benefit he expected hence, but as to Milton's Workes he intended to have printed, (though he saith that part which he had in M.S.S.
are no wat to be objected agt, either with regard to Royalty and Government) he hath desisted from the causing them to be printed, having left them in Holland, and that he intends, notwithstanding the College summons, to goe for Italy this summer.Skinner's supplication for his M.A.
What is unusual about this request is that such suspicion usually arose from a person's unwillingness to sign the oath of supremacy, a necessary part of the M.A.
(Campbell advances the hypothesis that Skinner was elected by Royal Mandate, under the patronage of Williamson, against the opposition of the College Seniors.
He is identified with the "young mister Skinner", discussed in a 1680-07-08 letter by Pepys, who was resident in Barbados and Mevis in 1680–1681.
[4] Skinner's writing style, in particular his abilities with Latin, are of particular concern to scholars, in that they shed light on his presumed rôle as amanuensis.