Thomas Churchyard and Thomas Camel

An equally politically sensitive, but substantially more radical, complex and convoluted flyting is that between Thomas Camel and Thomas Churchyard (c.1551-2). The sequence likewise opens with a poem that, while professing loyalty to the king, engages in court factionalism, and which is succeeded by contributions that often evade the contentious subject raised. Fifteen of the sixteen surviving poems that make up the controversy were collected and printed for Mychell Loblee in 1560 having been originally published individually during 1551 and 1552. ²³⁰

In Loblee’s edition the shots fired in the controversy appeared in the following order:

1. Churchyard, ‘Dauy Dycars Dreame’ (sig. Ai)
2. Camel, ‘To Dauid Dicars When’ (sigs Ai^v-Aii^r)
3. Churchyard, ‘A Replication vnto Camels Obiection’ (sigs Aii^v-Aiv^r)
4. Camel, ‘Camels Reioindre, to Churchyarde’ (sigs Aiv^r-Bii^v)
5. Churchyard, ‘The Surreioindre vnto Camels Reioindre’ (sigs Bii^v-Ci^r)
6. William Elderton, ‘A Decree betwene Churchyarde and Camell’ (sigs Ci^r-Ciii^r)
7. Anon, ‘Westerne Wyll, vpon the Debate betuyxte Churchyarde and Camell’ (sigs Ciii^r-Div^r)
8. T[homas] Hedley (trans.), ‘Of Such as on Fantesye Decree and Discus on Other Mens Workes, lo Ouides Tale Thus’ (sigs Div^r-Ei^r)
9. Gefferay Chappell [Churchyard(?)], ‘A Supplicacion vnto Mast Camell’ (sig. Ei)
10. Camel, ‘To Goodman Chappels Supplication’ (sigs Ei^v-Eii^r)
11. Steuen Steple [Churchyard(?)], ‘Steuen Steple to Mast Camell’ (sig. Eii)
12. Camel, ‘Camelles Conclusion, and Last Farewell, then, to Churchyarde and Those, that Defende his When’ (sigs Eii^v-Fii^r)
13. W. Watreman [Churchyard(?)], ‘Westerne Will to Camell and for Hym Selfe Alone’ (sigs Fii^r- Gi^r)
14. Anon, [Churchyard(?)], ‘A Plain and Fynall Confutation of Camelles Corlyke Oblatracion’ (sigs Gi^r-Hi^v)
15. Richard Beard, ‘Camelles Crosse Rowe’ (sigs Hi^v-Hii^v)

This flyting is distanced further from the court than the Smyth-Gray exchange. The protagonists and their personas straddle social, regional and professional stratifications; represented by the minor courtier Churchyard, Churchyard’s persona Dycar (a Piers Plowman figure), other personas including mariners or watermen, a printer, two putative clergymen and finally

²³⁰ The Contention betwyxte Churchyeard and Camell, vpon Dauid Dycers Dreame (printed for