y name Philippa, who had been in the service of John of
Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and of his Duchess (doubtless his second
wife, Constance), as well as in that of his mother the good Queen
Philippa, and who, on several occasions afterwards, besides special new
year's gifts of silver-gilt cups from the Duke, received her annual
pension of ten marks through her husband. It is likewise proved that,
in 1366, a pension of ten marks was granted to _a_ Philippa Chaucer,
one of the ladies of the Queen's Chamber. Obviously, it is a highly
probable assumption that these two Philippa Chaucers were one and the
same person; but in the absence of any direct proof it is impossible to
affirm as certain, or to deny as demonstrably untrue, that the Philippa
Chaucer of 1366 owed her surname to marriage. Yet the view was long
held, and is still maintained by writers of knowledge and insight, that
the Phillipa of 1366 was at that date Chaucer's wife. In or before
that year he married, it was said, Philippa Roet, daughter of Sir Paon
de Roet of Hainault, Guienne King of Arms, who came to England in Queen
Philippa's retinue in 1328. This tradition derived special
significance from the fact that another daughter of Sir Paon,
Katharine, widow of Sir Hugh Swynford, was successively governess,
mistress, and (third) wife to the Duke of Lancaster, to whose service
both Geoffrey and Philippa Chaucer were at one time attached. It was
apparently founded on the circumstance that Thomas Chaucer, the
supposed son of the poet, quartered the Roet arms with his own. But
unfortunately there is no evidence to show that Thomas Chaucer was a
son of Geoffrey; and the superstructure must needs vanish with its
basis. It being then no longer indispensable to assume Chaucer to have
been a married man in 1366, the Philippa Chaucer of that year MAY have
been only a namesake, and possibly a relative, of Geoffrey; for there
were other Chaucers in London besides him and his father (who died this
year), and one Chaucer at least has been found who was well-to-do
enough to have a Damsel of the Queen's Chamber for his daughter in
these certainly not very exclusive times.

There is accordingly no PROOF that Chaucer was a married man before
1374, when he is known to have received a pension for his own and his
wife's services. But with this negative result we are asked not to be
poor-spirited enough to rest content. At the opening of his "Book of
the Duchess," a poem