Current Theory Regarding the Date of the Prologue 215 



Phil. I. 14 ff.), since the date of Sir John's death is thought to have been 

 1391 (Skeat 7. Iviii), and the poem quotes K. T. 927-8. Other facts point 

 in the same direction. Lines 284-5, 



Before the chambre-window of the queue 

 At Wodestok, 



must refer, as Skeat points out, to a time when there was a queen at 

 Woodstock, who must therefore have been Joan of Navarre, queen 

 from 1403 to 1413. John Clanvowe was M. P. in 1348, would therefore 

 presumably have been born as early as 1327, and have been at least 

 63 in 1390, a date which Kittredge considers possible. His son, M. P. 

 in 1394, would be more nearly of the age for writing a love-poem of 

 this sort. Then the allusion to the eagle, if it refers to Henry (see 

 above, p. 171), would more aptly fit the last decade of the century, or the 

 first of the following. Indeed, Henry Bradley (New Eng. Diet. s. v. 

 Grede) dates the poem 1402-10. 



