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 Philippa Chaucer, the wife, 

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

 Constance.^ It should not be forgotten that Phihppa 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) Edward, 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, Annales, 

 1580, p. 548; 1592, p. 517; 1600, p. 527; Hammond, pp. 22 ff., 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 VH (Coulton, p. 73). Alice was a lady of the Garter in 1432 

 (Diet. Nat. Biog. 46. 55; Eneye. Brit., nth ed., 15. 857). 



" Hammond, p. 384. 



^P. 67. 



^P. 413. — It 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 Reeollcetions, p. 160). 



° Emerson, p. 337. 



