inglorious campaign; and that he was actually set free by the Peace.
When, in the year 1367, we next meet with his name in authentic records,
his earliest known patron, the Lady Elizabeth, is dead; and he has passed
out of the service of Prince Lionel into that of King Edward himself, as
Valet of whose Chamber or household he receives a yearly salary for life
of twenty marks, for his former and future services. Very possibly he had
quitted Prince Lionel's service when in 1361 that Prince had by reason of
his marriage with the heiress of Ulster been appointed to the Irish
government by his father, who was supposed at one time to have destined
him for the Scottish throne.

Concerning the doings of Chaucer in the interval between his liberation
from his French captivity and the first notice of him as Valet of the
King's Chamber we know nothing at all. During these years, however, no
less important a personal event than his marriage was by earlier
biographers supposed to have occurred. On the other hand, according to
the view which commends itself to several eminent living commentators of
the poet, it was not courtship and marriage, but a hopeless and unrequited
passion, which absorbed these years of his life. Certain stanzas in
which, as they think, he gave utterance to this passion are by them
ascribed to one of these years; so that if their view were correct, the
poem in question would have to be regarded as the earliest of his extant
productions. The problem which we have indicated must detain us for a
moment.

It is attested by documentary evidence, that in the year 1374, Chaucer had
a wife by 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