With its preoccupations of war, propaganda, and moral exhortations, Thomas Churchyard's poetry and prose won him few tributes from his contemporary writers; but from 1575 to his death his dedications read like a "Who's Who" of Elizabethan nobles and influential people: even Queen Elizabeth I accepted them. In the past four hundred years only an occasional voice has been raised in his defense, but such praise is not substantiated by close textual analysis. What fascinates the reader, then, is not Churchyard's literary skill, but the manner in which he managed to survive as a minor writer in Renaissance England. His search for patronage, his patriotism, imperialism, flattery, and prejudices--together with his extraordinary life adventures--make him vulnerable and knowable. Probably the most accurate (though not the kindest) assessment of his literary talents is Edmund Spenser's in Colin Clouts Come Home Againe (1595):

And there is old Palemon free from spight,
Whose...