Here Churchyard enriched
himself at the expense, it is to be feared, of the unhappy Irish; but in
1552 he was in England again, trying vainly to secure a fortune by
marriage with a rich widow. After this failure he departed once more to
the wars to the siege of Metz (1552), and "trailed a pike" in the
emperor's army, until he joined the forces under William, Lord Grey of
Wilton, with whom he says he served eight years. Grey was in charge of
the fortress of Gaines, which was besieged by the duke of Guise in 1558.
Churchyard arranged the terms of surrender, and was sent with his chief
to Paris as a prisoner. He was not released at the peace of Cateau
Cambresis for lack of money to pay his ransom, but he was finally set
free on giving his bond for the amount, an engagement which he
repudiated as soon as he was safely in England. He is not to be
identified with the T.C. who wrote for the _Mirror for Magistrates_ (ed.
1559), "How the Lord Mowbray ... was banished ... and after died
miserablie in exile," which is the work of Thomas Chaloner, but "Shore's
Wife," his most popular poem, appeared in the 1563 edition of the same
work, and to that of 1587 he contributed the "Tragedie of Thomas
Wolsey." These are plain manly compositions in the seven-lined
Chaucerian stanza. Repeated petitions to the queen for assistance
produced at first fair words, and then no answer at all. He therefore
returned to active service under Lord Grey, who was in command of an
English army sent (1560) to help the Scottish rebels, and in 1564 he
served in Ireland under Sir Henry Sidney. The religious disturbances in
the Netherlands attracted him to Antwerp, where as the agent of William
of Orange he allowed the insurgents to place him at their head, and was
able to save much property from destruction. This action made him so
hated by the mob that he had to fly for his life in the disguise of a
priest. In the next year he was sent by the earl of Oxford to serve
definitely under the prince of Orange. After a year's service he
obtained leave to return to England, and after many adventures and
narrow escapes in a journey through hostile territory he embarked for
Guernsey, and thence for England. His patron, Lord Oxford, disowned him,
and the poet, whose health was failing, retired to Bath. He appears to
have made a very unhappy marriage at this time, and returned to the Low
Countries. Falling into the hands of the Spaniards he was recognized as
having had a