Chaucer and Henry's Relatives 179 



(5) Lionel, Duke of Clarence (1338-1368). Among the 

 accounts of Lionel's wife, there are entries of the purchase of 

 clothing for Chaucer, under April 4, 1357; of a payment to 

 him May 20; and of a provision of Christmas necessaries for 

 him Dec. 20, showing that Chaucer was then in the employ of 

 Lionel.^ In 1359 he must have been serving under Lionel,- who 

 was attached to the division of the Black Prince. Toward the 

 end of 1360 he was dispatched by Lionel from Calais to Eng- 

 land as a bearer of letters.^ Here ends our direct information 

 with respect to Chaucer's connection with Lionel.* Kirk says 

 (p. xv) : 'Of Chaucer's life between 1360 and 1366 we have 

 absolutely no information, but it seems quite certain that he was 

 in the King's service during the greater part of that period, as 

 he received an annuity from the King at the end of it.'^ As a 

 matter of fact, the next appearance of Chaucer's name is on 

 June 20, 1367, when King Edward grants an annuity of twenty 

 marks to Chaucer, 'pro bono servicio quod dilectus vallectus 

 noster Galfridus Chaucer nobis impendit et impendet infuturum.' 

 If Chaucer had been in the king's service between 1360 and 1367, 

 as Kirk suggests,** and yet there is no mention of him as in per- 

 sonal attendance upon the king, where had these services been 

 performed? The answer is almost ludicrously easy, though 

 it rests upon a conjecture. In September,'^ 1361, Prince Lionel 

 had gone over to Ireland as viceroy, accompanied by his wife, 



^ Kirk. pp. xiii-xiv, 152-3; Bond, in Life-Records III, pp. 98 fif. 



" Skeat I. xviii ; Ramsay i. 435; Emerson, p. 2i27- 



^ Emerson, pp. 358, 361. 



* Skeat says (i. xx) : 'On July i, 1361, Prince Lionel was appointed 

 lieutenant of Ireland. ... It does not appear that Chaucer remained 

 in his service much longer; for he must have been attached to the royal 

 household not long after the return of the English army from France.' 



^ Cf. Lounsbury i. 59: 'Between 1360 and 1367 lies an exasperating- 

 blank in the poet's life. Not the slightest suggestion as to what was 

 his occupation during that time can be derived from any quarter, beyond 

 the inference that may be drawn from the language used in the subsequent 

 gift of a pension, that he was employed in the king's service. But even 

 of the nature of this service, and where it kept him, or whither it took 

 him, we have nowhere the least inkling, when we have gone so far as 

 to assume its reality.' 



° Cf. Lounsbury, above. 



"He arrived Sept. 15 {Annals of Ireland, in Chartularies of St. Mary's 

 Abbey, Dublin, ed. Gilbert, 2. 395). 



