Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 1.djvu/20

 heaping favours, honours, and titles upon her, he made her his wife, procured an act of parliamet 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 intereft, Chaucer's alſo return- ed, and after a long and bitter ſtorm, the fun 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 Nofter, an annuity of twenty marks per annum during his life, as a compenſation for the former penſion his needy cir- cumſtances 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 pub- lickly till his majeſty again granted him his royal protection to ſcreen him from the perſecution of his creditors; he alſo reſtored to him his grant of a pitcher of wine daily, and a pipe annually, to be delivered to him by his ſon Thomas, who that year poffefied the office of chief butler to the king. Now that I have mentioned his ſon, it will not he improper, to take a view of our author's domeſ- tical affairs, at leaſt as far as we are enabled, by ma. terials that have deſcended to our times. Thomas his eldeſt ſon, was married to one of the greateſt fortunes in England, Maud, daughter and heir of Sir John Burgheerſhe, knight of the garter, and Dr. Henry Eurghurſhe biſhop of Lincoln, chan- cellor and treaſurer of England. Mr. Speight ſays this lady was given him in marriage by Edward · III. in return of his ſervices performed in his en. bafies in France. His fecond fon Lewis was born in 1381, for when his father wrote the treatiſe of the Aftrolabe, ho was ten years old; he was then a ſtudent in Merton college in Oxford, and pupil to Nicholas Strade, but there is no further account of him. Thomas who now enjoyed the office of chief butler to his majeſty, had the ſame place confirmed