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 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
possessed the office of chief butler to the king.

Now that I have mentioned his son, it will not be improper, to take
a view of our author's domestical affairs, at least as far as we are
enabled, by materials 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 Burghurshe bishop of Lincoln, chancellor
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
embassies in France. His second son Lewis was born in 1381, for when
his father wrote the treatise of the Astrolabe, he 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 to him for life, by letters patent to king Henry IV,
and continued by Henry VI. In the 2d year of Henry IV, we find him
Speaker of the House of Commons, Sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire,
and Constable of Wallingford castle and Knaresborough castle during
life. In the 6th year of the same prince, he was sent ambassador to
France. In the 9th of the same reign the Commons presented him their
Speaker; as they did likewise in the 11th year. Soon after this Queen
Jane, granted to him for his good service, the manor of Woodstock,