The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland | Page 4

of these
disturbances; which did not long continue; for upon beheading one of
the rioters, and Northampton's being taken into custody, the commotion
subsided. Strict search was made after Chaucer, who escaped into
Hainault; afterwards he went to France, and finding the king resolute to
get him into his hands, he fled from thence to Zealand. Several
accomplices in this affair were with him, whom he supported in their
exile, while the chief ringleaders, (except Northampton who was
condemned at Reading upon the evidence of his clerk) had restored
themselves to court favour by acknowledging their crime, and now
forgot the integrity and resolution of Chaucer, who suffered exile to
secure their secrets; and so monstrously ungrateful were they, that they
wished his death, and by keeping supplies of money from him,
endeavoured to effect it;--While he expended his fortune in removing
from place to place, and in supporting his fellow exiles, so far from
receiving any assistance from England, his apartments were let, and the
money received for rent was never acccounted for to him; nor could he
recover any from those who owed it him, they being of opinion it was

impossible for him ever to return to his own country. The government
still pursuing their resentment against him and his friends, they were
obliged to leave Zealand, and Chaucer being unable to bear longer the
calamities of poverty and exile, and finding no security wherever he
fled, chose rather to throw himself upon the laws of his country, than
perish abroad by hunger and oppression. He had not long returned till
he was arrested by order of the king, and confined in the tower of
London. The court sometimes flattered him with the return of the royal
favour if he would impeach his accomplices, and sometimes threatened
him with immediate destruction; their threats and promises he along
while disregarded, but
recollecting the ingratitude of his old friends,
and the miseries he had already suffered, he at last made a confession,
and according to the custom of trials at that time, offered to prove the
truth of it by combat. What the consequence of this discovery was to
his accomplices, is uncertain, it no doubt exposed him to their
resentment, and procured him the name of a traytor; but the king, who
regarded him as one beloved by his grandfather, was pleased to pardon
him. Thus fallen from a heighth of greatness, our poet retired to
bemoan the fickleness of fortune, and then wrote his Testament of Love,
in which are many pathetic exclamations concerning the vicissitude of
human things, which he then bitterly experienced. But as he had
formerly been the favourite of fortune, when dignities were multiplied
thick upon him, so his miseries now succeeded with an equal swiftness;
he was not only discarded by his majesty, unpensioned, and abandoned,
but he lost the favour of the duke of Lancaster, as the influence of his
wife's sister with that prince was now much lessened. The duke being
dejected with the troubles in which he was involved, began to reflect on
his vicious course of life, and particularly his keeping that lady as his
concubine; which produced a resolution of putting her out of his house,
and he made a vow to that purpose. Chaucer, thus reduced, and weary
of the perpetual turmoils at court, retired to Woodstock, to enjoy a
studious quiet; where he wrote his excellent treatise of the Astrolabe;
but notwithstanding the severe treatment of the government, he still
retained his loyalty, and strictly enjoined his son to pray for the king.
As the pious resolutions of some people are often the consequence of a
present evil, so at the return of prosperity they are soon dissipated. This
proved the case with the duke of Lancaster: his party again gathered

strength, his interest began to rise; upon which he took again his
mistress to his bosom, and not content with heaping favours, honours,
and titles upon her, he made her his wife, procured an act of parliament
to legitimate her children, which gave great offence to the duchess of
Gloucester, the countess of Derby, and Arundel, as she then was
entitled to take place of them. With her interest, Chaucer's also returned,
and after a long and bitter storm, the sun began to shine upon him with
an evening ray; for at the sixty-fifth year of his age, the king granted to
him, by the title of Delectus Armiger Noster, an annuity of twenty
marks per annum during his life, as a compensation for the former
pension his needy circumstances obliged him to part with; but however
sufficient that might be for present support, yet as he was encumbered
with debts, he durst not appear publickly till his majesty again granted
him his royal protection to screen