Sir Paon De Ruet and Chaucer 63 



5. Thomas succeeded Chaucer as Forester of North Pether- 

 ton, in Somersetshire. 



6. Thomas Gascoigne, Chancellor of Oxford University, posi- 

 tively asserts (at some time between 1434 and 1457) that Geoffrey 

 Chaucer was the father of Thomas : 'Fuit idem Chawserus pater 

 Thome Chawserus, armigeri, qui Thomas sepelitur in Nuhelm 

 [Ewelme], juxta Oxoniam.'^^ This, of course, proves nothing 

 as to his descent from Ruet. 



To the foregoing may be added the fact discovered by Edward 

 Scott,^* and pubhshed by Skeat in 1900 (Athencetim, June 27), 

 that about 1422 Thomas Chaucer paid the warden of St. Mary's 

 Chapel at Westminster £168 for the rent of his house, which, 

 was just half what Chaucer was to pay,^^ is assumed by Skeat 

 to represent a half-year's rent. The payments continued till 

 1434, in which year Thomas Chaucer died. 



This, again, proves nothing as to the descent from Ruet, which 

 must therefore repose upon i, 2, and 3 — the explicit assertion 

 of Robert Glover, the cousinship acknowledged by Henry Beau- 

 fort, and the fact that Thomas Chaucer's arms, as found upon 

 his tomb, were those of Katharine Swynford. That he was the 

 son of Chaucer there seems no valid reason to doubt.^^ 



erally supposed to have been erected by Nicholas Brigham in 1555 (Ham- 

 mond, pp. 17, 30, 44 ff.; Diet. Nat. B'wg. 6. 331) ; but cf. Hammond, pp. 

 42-3- 



^ Printed by Kirk, p. 322. Hales, who prints the passage (Folia 

 Literaria, p. iii, from the Athenceum for March 31, 1888), remarks: 

 'Thomas Chaucer . . . must have been well known, not only by report, 

 but personally, at Oxford; for he had residences both at Woodstock, 

 some seven miles north, and at Ewelme, some fifteen miles south-west, 

 the direct road between Woodstock and Ewelme passing through Oxford.' 



^* See Coulton, Chaucer and his England, p. 73. 



^ The lease to Chaucer bears date Dec. 24, 1399, and is printed, with 

 comments, by Kirk, pp. 329-330. 



^'For discussion of the whole subject, see Nicolas, Aldine Chaucer, pp. 

 44-50", 86; Hammond, pp. 24, 47-8; Kirk, pp. li-lvii; Diet. Nat. Biog. 

 10. 158-9; Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer i. 104 fif. ; Skeat, Oxford 

 Chaucer i. 1-li ; Pollard, Chaucer, pp. 9-10. 



