178 Chaucer and Henry, Earl of Derby 



On June 13, 1374, John of Gaunt grants Chaucer $750 a year 

 for Hfe, for his own and his wife's services/ as on Aug. 30, 

 1372, he had granted the same sum to PhiHppa Chaucer, the wife, 

 for the services that she had done and was to do to his wife 

 Constance.^ It should not be forgotten that Philippa was 

 probably the sister -of John's third wife, Katharine Swynford,^ 

 so that, through this connection, Chaucer's (probable) son, 

 Thomas Chaucer, could be called cousin by Henry Beaufort 

 ( ?I375-I477), John of Gaunt's second son by Katharine Swyn- 

 ford,* and Chaucer's great-great-grandson was at one time heir- 

 apparent to the throne of England.^ 



About 1379 may perhaps be dated Chaucer's Complaint of 

 Mars, made, according to Shirley, at the command of John of 

 Gaunt." Whatever their intimacy may or may not have been in 

 the later years of Chaucer's life, Coulton is justified in speaking 

 of John of Gaunt as Chaucer's best patron," and Armitage-Smith 

 in saying: 'Posterity has never forgotten the debt owed by 

 Chaucer and English literature to the Duke of Lancaster.'® 



(4) Edivard, the Black Prince (1330-1376). In the French 

 campaign of 1359-60, Chaucer was in the division of the army 

 led by the Prince of Wales.^ 



^Kirk, p. 192. 



^Kirk, p. 181 (cf. the king's annuity in 1366, p. 158). 



'Skeat, p. li; Kirk, pp. xvi-xix, li-lvii, 334; Coulton, pp. 30-31; 

 Armitage-Smith, pp. 389 ff., 451, 461-3; Wylie 3- 258-264; Stow, Annates, 

 1580, p. 548; 1592, p. 517; 1600, p. 527; Hammond, pp. 22 f?., 47-8; 

 Kittredge, in Mod. Phil. i. 5; Nicolas, in Aldine Chaucer (1880), pp. 

 44-50, 86-92, 1 13-4. 



^Kirk, pp. lii, 334; Armitage-Smith, p. 389; Wylie 4. 313-4; Diet. Nat. 

 Biog. 46, 55. 



^Thomas had (i) daughter, Alice, who had (2) son, John de la Pole, 

 Duke of Suffolk, who had (3) son, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln 

 (?I464-I487), chosen by Richard III as heir, and slain in battle against 

 Henry VII (Coulton, p. 72)- Alice was a lady of the Garter in 1432 

 {Diet. Nat. Biog. 46. 55; Encyc. Brit., nth ed., 15. 857). 



'' Hammond, p. 384. 



' P. 67. 



s p. 413 _lt is interesting, though not pertinent to this discussion, to 

 know that a lineal descendant of the duke, through Prince Henry the 

 Navigator, died in 1898, after being for twenty-five years the husband 

 of an English wife; he was Antonio Manuelo Saldanha, Count of 

 Lancastre or Alencastre (Countess of Cardigan, My Recollcetions, p. 160). 



° Emerson, p. 337. 



