Thomas Churchyard (c. 1520 – 1604), English author, was born at Shrewsbury, the son of a farmer.
Churchyard received a good education, and, having speedily dissipated at court the money with which his father provided him, he entered the household of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. There he remained for four years, learning something of the art of poetry from his patron; some of the poems he contributed later (1555) to Nicholas Grimald's and Richard...
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Thomas Churchyard (c. 1520 – 1604), English author, was born at Shrewsbury, the son of a farmer.
Churchyard received a good education, and, having speedily dissipated at court the money with which his father provided him, he entered the household of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. There he remained for four years, learning something of the art of poetry from his patron; some of the poems he contributed later (1555) to Nicholas Grimald's and Richard Tottel's collection, Songes and Sonettes (known more often as Tottel's Miscellany), may well date from this early period. In 1541 he began his career as a soldier of fortune, being, he said, "pressed into the service." He fought his way through nearly every campaign in Scotland and the Low Countries for thirty years. He served under the emperor Charles V in Flanders in 1542, returning to England after the Peace of Crépy (1544).
In the Scottish campaign of 1547 he was present at the barren victory of Pinkie, and in the next year was taken...
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