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-