that he was educated either at Oxford or Cambridge, though his great knowledge in all branches of medieval learning, especially as difplayed in his Confeffio Amantis, affords a ftrong prefumption, that he must have been a student at one of the universities. It is one of the many inventions of Leland,* that Gower was a lawyer; others have made him a member of the Temple and even a judge; there is however as little proof of such reprefentations as of those refpecting Chaucer having belonged to the legal profeffion: nor does it appear that a judge bearing the name of Gower fat on the bench during the fourteenth century. It is certain, however, that he was the owner of much landed property, and received a learned education; and his compofitions in Latin, French and English, prove that he was a highly cultivated English gentleman, and one of the earliest poets in his mothertongue. The next mention of the poet occurs in Leland, who heard that he belonged to the ancient family of the Gowers of Stitenham in Yorkshire, the ancestors of the marquis of Stafford, which family, tradition states, came from Britanny with William the Conqueror in his expedition to England. This statement has been repeated by Bale, Pitts, and Holinfhed, who contented themselves with merely copying from Leland; but the late Rev. Henry J. Todd§ has attempted to fupport it by documentary evidence, which, he afferts, remained un Commentarii de Script. Brit. p. 414. Coluit forum et patrias leges lucri caufa. + Fofs, Judges of England, iv. p. 28. Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis, ed. Hall, p. 414. Johannes Goverus, vir equeftris ordinis, ex Stitenhamo, villa Eboracenfis provinciæ, ut ego accepi, originem ducens, etc. § Illuftrations of the Lives and Writings of Gower and Chaucer, London, 1810. noticed up to his time. Mr. Todd's evidence however has, unfortunately for his argument, very little foundation. He expreffes his defire "to connect, according to a proud family tradition, the poet Gower with that illuftrious house of the fame name," and conjectures that a remarkable manuscript of the Confeffio Amantis, of which the marquis of Stafford was then in poffeffion, and which is now the property of the earl of Ellesmere, "was a present from the author to one of the Gower family foon after the completion of the work."* It will appear hereafter, how very flightly Mr. Todd examined this manufcript. He mentions alfo, as further evidence of this Family connexion, a deed in the archives of the marquis of Stafford executed by Robert de Ranclif of Stitenham, dated the Wednesday next after Eafter, the 19th of April 1346, which was witneffed amongst others by a John Gower. But this charter is indorfed, as Mr. Todd himself remarks, "in the handwriting of at least a century later.”† "1346. Johannes Gower, wittnes only St John Gower the poet." Mr. Todd has likewife published the poet's laft will; but this document has not the slightest reference to Yorkshire, and a number of records exist in which property of the very fame teftator, fituated in feveral fouthern and eastern counties, is mentioned. Since Todd's publication other particulars have been brought to light, principally through the research of that indefatigable genealogift and antiquary, the late Sir Harris Nicolas, which go far to fhow, that the poet belonged altogether to a different family, and that he was born and dwelt in Kent, where he poffeffed confiderable pro Illuftrations of Chaucer and Gower, p. 109. + Ibid. p. xviii. 91. * perty. Sir H. Nicolas obferves, that "the strongest evidence against the opinion, that the poet was of the Yorkshire family of Gower, exifts in the entire difference of their arms." On the poet's tomb in Southwark and on a feal attached to a deed executed by John Gower and dated 1373, the fame coat is emblazoned, thus demonstrating that the poet and this John Gower are one and the same perfon. These arms are Argent on a chevron, Azure, three leopards' heads, Or. Both crefts are also identical, on a chapeau a talbot paffant. Whereas the Gowers of Stitenham bear Barry, Argent, and Gules, a cross patee flore, Sable; and for their creft a wolf paffant, Argent, collared and chained, Or. Sir Harris Nicolas on the authority of one of the Cottonian MSS. (Julius C. vII. fol. 152) states that there was living at the fame period another John Gower, who bore a coat entirely different from the two families above mentioned. He was a party to a deed with Ralph Spigurnell and Sir John de Byshopston, dated Westminster, the 20th of August 1359, and enrolled on Rot. Pat. 33 Edw. III. p. II. membr. 6. By this inftrument the king confirms to him and others certain grants for life made by Roger Mortimer, earl of March. One of the manors granted is that of Bridgewater in Somerset, with which the defcendants of the Gowers of Stitenham have only recently been connected. In the fourteenth century a family of refpectability of the name of Gower dwelt in Suffolk and probably refided occafionally in Kent, to which attention was first drawn by Weever,† who, when mentioning the epitaph of Sir Robert Gower on his tomb at Brabourne, adds: "From this familie John Gower the poet was defcended." Sir Robert Gower, knight, obtained on the 25th of June Retrospective Review, Second Series, 11. p. 111. + Funeral Monuments, p. 270, fol. 1631. 1333 from David de Strabolgi, earl of Athol, who was killed in the Scotch wars in 1335, a grant of the manor of Kentwell with its appurtenances in Suffolk. Sir Robert died in or before the year 1349, for the faid manor was granted at that time to Katherine, Countess of Athol, to hold until the heirs of the deceased became of age.* He *He was buried in the church of Brabourne near Afhford in Kent, where a brafs monument was formerly preferved with his effigy, holding a shield charged with the fame arms as those on the poet's tomb and on the feal of the above-mentioned deed executed by John Gower in 1373. Sir Robert Gower left two daughters as his heirs, of whom Katherine, the elder, died in the year 1366, and her sister Joan, the wife of William Neve of Wyting, fucceeded her in her moiety of Kentwell. Neve muft have died within two years of that date, for on the 28th June 1368 Thomas Syward, pewterer and citizen of London, and Joan his wife, daughter of Sir Robert Gower, knight, granted the manor of Kentwell in Suffolk to John Gower,† who certainly was the next heir and a near relative to Joan, though we do not learn whether he was her coufin, nephew, or brother. By a deed executed at Orford, on Thursday the 30th of September 1373, John Gower conferred the whole of his manor of Kentwell in Suffolk upon John Cobham, knight, William Wefton, Roger Afhburnham, Thomas Brokhill, and Thomas Preston, rector of Tunstall. Some of the feoffees, especially Sir John Cobham, refided in Kent, and the document was likewife executed in that county. Can it be a mere coincidence, fays Sir Harris Nicolas, that the poet in his will mentions his manor of Nicolas, Retrofp. Rev. p. 107, from the original charters and inquifitions. + Ibid. pp. 107-8. Multon in Suffolk, which is fcarcely fifteen miles distant from Kentwell, and appoints Sir Arnold Savage, a Kentish knight, whose family was closely related to the Cobhams, and William Denne likewife of Kent, to be his executors ?* It appears far more probable that John Gower the owner of Multon, and John Gower the owner of Kentwell, who bore the fame arms, lived at the fame time, held property in Suffolk, and poffeffed at least friends in Kent, was one and the fame perfon. The name of Gower does not occur very frequently either in royal or private grants, and that of John Gower is ftill rarer. All records therefore in which a John Gower is mentioned as having lived during the fecond part of the fourteenth century in Suffolk and Kent, may reasonably be referred to the poet himself, and not to the Gowers of Stitenham, from whom the present noble family of Gower is defcended. Fortunately a careful search of the Clofe Rolls of Edward III. and Richard II., undertaken for the purpose, has yielded fome evidence unknown to previous writers, which converts the conjecture of Sir Harris Nicolas into a certainty. The first document bearing upon the subject is a charter dated the 1ft of Auguft 1382, by which Guy de Rowcliffe, clerk, grants and confirms the manor of Feltwell in the county of Norfolk and the manor of Multon in Suffolk, which had been granted to him by Thomas de Catherton, to John Gower, efquire of Kent, to have and to hold in fee to the said John Gower and his heirs male by due and accustomed fervices. The next is a deed dated the 3rd of August 1382, by which John Gower, efquire of Kent, releases for ever to Guy de Rowcliffe, clerk, who had granted to him and his heirs on the 1st of August the manors of Feltwell and Multon, all manner of warranty Retrospective Review, p. 106. |