n, the keeping
of order during the divine service, and the giving of offenders into
custody; the assignment of seats to parishioners; the guardianship of
the movable goods of the church; the preservation and repair of the
church and churchyard, the fabric and the fixtures; and the presentment
of offences against ecclesiastical law.

In the episcopal church of the United States churchwardens discharge
much the same duties as those performed by the English officials; their
duties, however, are regulated by canons of the diocese, not by canons
general. In the United States, too, the usual practice is for the
parishes to elect both the churchwardens.

See Prideaux's _Churchwarden's Guide_ (16th ed., London, 1895);
Steer's _Parish Law_ (6th ed., London, 1899); Blunt's _Book of Church
Law_ (7th ed., London, 1894).

CHURCHYARD, THOMAS (c. 1520-1604), English author, was born at
Shrewsbury about 1520, the son of a farmer. He 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
(1557) to _Songes and Sonettes_ 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 Crepy (1544). In the Scottish campaign of 1547 he was
present at the barren victory of Pinkie, and in the next year was taken
prisoner at Saint Monance, but aided by his persuasive tongue he escaped
to the English garrison at Lauder, where he was once more besieged, only
returning to England on the conclusion of peace in 1550. A broadside
entitled _Davy Dycars Dreame_, a short and seemingly alliterative poem
in the manner of Piers Plowman, brought him into trouble with the privy
council, but he was dismissed with a reprimand. This tract was the
starting-point of a controversy between Churchyard and a certain Thomas
Camel. The whole of the "flyting" was reprinted in 1560 as _The
Contention betwixte Churchyard and Camell_.

In 1550 he went to Ireland to serve the lord deputy, Sir Anthony St
Leger, who had been sent to pacify the country.