He is principally known to posterity for his long allegorical poem in 1596 opposing voluntary death, in parody of Book I of The Faerie Queene, entitled A Fig for Fortune; it has been considered a contribution to the same tradition as Hamlet.
He then went to the Low Countries, where he obtained a pension of twenty crowns from Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, and entered the service of Philip II of Spain, in which he remained until shortly before 1590.
He lived as a married man at Roffey, Horsham (then spelt variously including Roughay), and on 22 June 1592, in a letter from Richard Topcliffe to the queen, he is described as a bravo.
An object of suspicion to the government, and imprisoned several times during the remainder of Elizabeth's reign, his writings were fervently loyal.
[2] On the accession of James I of England, Copley was concerned in the Bye Plot for placing Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne.
He and the other conspirators were tried and condemned to death; but Copley was pardoned (18 August 1604), having made a confession relating the history of the plot.