In consequence of her good service, Philippa had a pension for her life; and I regret that little more is known concerning her: but it should seem that she was a good and tender wife, and that long years of wedded life did not weaken her husband's attachment for her; for she accompanied Chaucer when he was exiled, about fifteen years after his marriage, though every motive of prudence and selfishness, on both sides, would then have induced a separation.[53] Neither was the poet likely to be easily satisfied on the score of conjugal obedience; he was rather exigeant and despotic, if we may trust his own description of a perfect wife. The chivalrous and poetical lover was the slave of his mistress; but once married, it is all vice versa.
She saith not once nay, when he saith yea
"Do this," saith he, "all ready, Sir," saith she!
The precise date of Philippa's death is not known, but it took place some years before that of her husband. Their residence at the time of their marriage, was a small stone building, near the entrance of Woodstock Park; it had been given to Chaucer by Edward the Third; afterwards they resided principally at Donnington Castle, that fine and striking ruin, which must be remembered by all who have travelled the Newberry road. In the domain attached to this castle were three oaks of remarkable size and beauty, to which Chaucer gave the names of the Queen's oak, the King's oak, and Chaucer's oak; these venerable trees were felled in Evelyn's time, and are commemorated in his Sylva, as among the noblest of their species.
Philippa's eldest son, Thomas Chaucer, had a daughter, Alice, who became the wife of William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, the famous favourite of Margaret of Anjou. The grandson of Alice Chaucer, by the Duke of Suffolk, John Earl of Lincoln, was declared heir to the crown by Richard the Third;[54] and had the issue of the battle of Bosworth been different, would undoubtedly have ascended the throne of England;—as it was, the lineage of Chaucer was extinguished on a scaffold.
The fate of Catherine Picard de Rouet, the sister of Chaucer's wife, was still more remarkable,—she was destined to be the mother of a line of kings.
She had been domicella, or maid of honour to the Duchess Blanche, after whose death, the infant children of the Princess were committed to her care.[55] In this situation she won the heart of their father, the Duke of Lancaster, who on the death of his second wife, Constance of Castile, married Catherine, and his children by her were solemnly legitimatized. The conduct of Catherine, except in one instance, had been irreproachable: her humility, her prudence, and her various accomplishments, not only reconciled the royal family and the people to her marriage, but added lustre to her rank: and when Richard the Second married Isabella of France, the young Queen, then only nine years old, was placed under the especial care and tuition of the Duchess of Lancaster.
One of the grand-daughters of Catherine, Lady Jane Beaufort, had the singular fortune of becoming at once the inspiration and the love of a great poet, the queen of an accomplished monarch, and the common ancestress of all the sovereigns of England since the days of Elizabeth.[56]
Never, perhaps, was the influence of woman on a poetic temperament more beautifully illustrated, than in the story of James the First of Scotland, and Lady Jane Beaufort. It has been so elegantly told by Washington Irving in the Sketch-Book, that it is only necessary to refer to it.—James, while a prisoner, was confined in Windsor Castle, and immediately under his window there was a fair garden, in which the Lady Jane was accustomed to walk with her attendants, distinguished above them all by her beauty and dignity, even more than by her state and the richness of her attire. The young monarch beheld her accidentally, his imagination was fired, his heart captivated, and from that moment his prison was no longer a dungeon, but a palace of light and love. As he was the best poet and musician of his time, he composed songs in her praise, set them to music, and sang them to his lute. He also wrote the history of his love, with all its circumstances, in a long poem[57] still extant; and though the language be now obsolete, it is described, by those who have studied it, as not only full of beauties both of sentiment and expression, but unpolluted by a single thought or allusion which the most refined age, or the most fastidious delicacy, could reject;—a singular distinction, when we consider that James's only models must have been Gower and Chaucer, to whom no such praise is due: we must rather suppose that he was no imitator, but that he owed his inspiration to modest and queenly beauty, and to the genuine tenderness of his own heart. His description of the fair apparition who came to bless his solitary hours, is so minute and peculiar, that it must have been drawn from the life:—the net of pearls, in which her light tresses were gathered up; the chain of fine-wrought gold about her neck; the heart-shaped ruby suspended from it, which glowed on her snowy bosom like a spark of fire; her white vest looped up to facilitate her movements; her graceful damsels who followed at a respectful distance; and her little dog gambolling round her with its collar of silver bells,—these, and other picturesque circumstances, were all noted in the lover's memory, and have been recorded by the poet's verse. And he sums up her perfections thus:
In her was youth, beauty, and numble port,
Bountee, richesse, and womanly feature.
God better knows than my pen can report,
Wisdom, largesse,[58] estate,[59] and cunning[60] sure:
In every point so guided her measure,
In word, in deed, in shape, in countenance,
That nature could no more her child advance.