6o Sir Paon De Ruet and Chancer 



don fait Panneto de Rocd, de Hannonia.' This I have not been 

 able to verify. Perhaps it is on the form Panneto that Kerv)m 

 bases his Paonnet^*^ (above, p. 56). 



Ruet is reported, on the faith of a document which I have not 

 seen, to have been Guienne King of Arms as early as 1334 

 (Edmondson, Complete Body of Heraldry i. 104) : *A grant said 

 to be made by Sir Paen Roet, in 1334, to Andrew, stiles him 

 expressly king of arms of the duchy of Guyenne,^^ which, if it 

 be not genuine, shews however the opinion of the age wherein 

 that instrument was made.' This statement, which Edmondson 

 seems to doubt, is confirmed, though not with respect to the date, 

 by Speght (1598), in the life of Chaucer prefixed to his edition, 

 where a genealogical tree^^ begins : 'Paganus de Rouet Han- 

 noniensis, aliter dictus Guien Rex Armorum.'^^ Just before he 

 has: 'He [Chaucer] matched in marriage with a Knight's daugh- 

 ter of Renault, called Paon de Ruet, king of Armes,-° as by this 

 draught appeareth,^^ taken out of the office of the Heraldes.' 



In 1347, Ruet was at the siege of Calais, and was one of two 



" The paonnet of Rom. Rose (ed. Michel) 7390 (cf. 7400) is from 

 Lat. pedonem (cf. Book of the Duchess 661), and can have no connection 

 with our name. 



^'' It is certain that there was a Guienne King of Arms at the coronation 

 of Henry the Fifth (1413), that Sir William Bruges held that title in 

 the fifth year of his reign (Edmondson i. 104), and that the same monarch 

 was accompanied to France before Agincourt by a herald bearing that 

 name (Wylie, Reign of Henry the Fifth i. 493). 



"^^ Hammond, Chaucer, p. 22. According to Speght {ibid., p. 24), the 

 authority for this stemma was the trustworthy Somerset Herald, Robert 

 Glover (1544-1588). 



^Ubid., p. 23. 



"" Speght's authority was Stow, as in Annales of England, 1592 (there is 

 nothing to the point in the edition of 1580), p. 517: 'He had to wife the 

 daughter of Paine Roete alias Gwine [ed. 1631, Guian] king at armes, by 

 whom he had issue Tho. Chaucer.' To the same effect Annales, 1614, pp. 

 527-8. In the edition of 1631, p. 326, Stow states that he supplied the infor- 

 mation to Speght from records in the Tower and elsewhere. Add Joseph 

 Holland (1601), quoted by Spurgeon, Five Hundred Years of Chancer 

 Criticism, p. 167 : 'John of Ghaunt, Duke of Lancaster, married Katharine 

 daughter of Guyon King of Armes in the time of K. Edward the 3, 

 and Geffrey Chaucer her sister.' Francis James, in 1638, calls Chaucer 

 'Payne Roets Nephew' (Spurgeon, p. 219). 



"' Kervyn de Lettenhove (Froissarf 23. 38) says that Ruet was thus 

 designated in the English Rolls, but this I have not been able to confirm. 



