In honor of Prince John's marriage, Chaucer wrote "The Parliament of Fowls," and in memory of Blanche's death "The Book of the Duchess." Chaucer seems to have had a true reverence and affection for the sweet household virtues and the wifely truth of this lady. The remembrance of her may perhaps have first suggested to him the image of Griselda. These two poems, connected as they were with the royal family, confirmed Chaucer's reputation as a writer of verse; and men and women began to point him out to each other and talk about him. In those days, however, it was quite impossible for any man to make literature his profession, and all his life, therefore, he could only take poetry as the business of his leisure hours. Then, no doubt, he really worked at it more than at the employment by which he lived; and no doubt, also, as he went about through the world, he was always learning something for his art. If this had not been the case, the name of Chaucer would not be what it now is in English literature.
At about this period Edward the Third set off for one of his many warlike expeditions into France. Young Chaucer, who was ready for everything, and who perhaps thought he should like to see a little of a soldier's life, entered the army and followed the king.
But the young soldier's experiences were not to be all of nights spent beneath clear starlit skies, and cheery communing with his comrades, and the eager glow of battle. Through an unlucky chance of war Chaucer was taken prisoner.
His prepossessing manners, and his knowledge of the French language and customs, gained during his stay in Paris probably, made his captivity a very easy one. But he had to sit still with folded hands while his countrymen were fighting, and in this season of forced inactivity he had time to repent past follies and to make good resolves for the future. At length, through an exchange of prisoners, the poet was set free. After that he never tried a soldier's life again, having most likely had quite enough of it.
Soon after his return to England, he got an appointment about the Court which brought him a settled income. He now began to think of making himself a home. Among those who followed in the train of Edward's queen, Philippa, when she came to England, were a certain knight of Hainault, called Roet, and his two little daughters. These children were now grown up into very comely young women. One, Catherine, had married an English gentleman, named Swynford. The other, Philippa, was maid of honor to the queen. According to Fanny Burney, a maid of honor has quite enough to do in the labors of dressing her mistress and herself; yet this industrious damsel, Philippa Roet, found spare time sufficient (between the business of clasping on jewels and arranging gracefully royal mantles, and contriving how to make an old dress look like new) to fall in love with Geoffrey Chaucer, and, what was more, to make the poet desperately in love with herself.
There being no impediment in the way, and the king and queen forwarding the matter, Chaucer and his Philippa were soon made man and wife. Not long after their marriage they had the misfortune to lose their generous mistress, the queen. Edward the Third, however, still treated Chaucer with favor. He made him one of the valets of his bed-chamber, and also gave him a high office in the customs. The two halves of his life must now have been strangely different. One was spent among velvet doublets, and waving plumes, and gilded armor, and all the many splendid vanities of a court; the other among heavy ledgers, and hard-handed sea captains, and casks of coarse spirit, and the most vulgar realities of a commonplace life. No wonder that a man whose time was passed among such contrasts should write by turns of a noble knight and a miller.
Several times King Edward sent Chaucer abroad on political missions. This is a great proof of the high esteem in which his master held him. In one of these journeys he went into Italy and saw the Mediterranean wash the marble quays of Genoa, and the stately towers of fair Florence raise themselves toward the blue sky. On this occasion, some of his biographers think, he visited Petrarch. This notion is, however, only founded on a passage in the "Canterbury Tales;" it is therefore our opinion that Chaucer, anxious as he must have been to despatch quickly the king's business, would hardly have spared time to go to Arqua, where Petrarch then lived, and that those who draw from the passage in question the inference that the two great poets must have met, are, as blundering critics often do, confounding the author with his characters. One of Chaucer's personages says that he heard a story he is about to tell from Petrarch; but that is no reason for concluding that Chaucer so heard it himself.
Rich must have been the dramatic anecdote and lively description which Chaucer brought home from these journeys. In those days of little travelling, an account of foreign countries must have had freshness and interest, even when it came from a commonplace man. What, then, must it have been on the lips of Chaucer?
