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 said manor was granted at that time to Katherine, Countess of Athol, to hold until the heirs of the deceased became of age.* He was buried in the church of Brabourne near Afhford in Kent, where a brafs monument was formerly preserved 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 must 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 Ashburnham, 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 scarcely fifteen miles diftant from Kentwell, and appoints Sir Arnold Savage, a Kentish knight, whose family was clofely related to the Cobhams, and William Denne likewise 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 possessed at least friends in Kent, was one and the fame person.

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 prefent noble family of Gower is defcended.

Fortunately a careful fearch 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 1st 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 faid John Gower and his heirs male by due and accustomed fervices. The next is a deed dated the 3rd of Auguft 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 1ft of August the manors of Feltwell and Multon, all manner of warranty

* Retrospective Review, p. 106.

for the faid manors. This release was acknowledged in Chancery by the aforefaid John Gower in perfon on the 28th of the fame month.*

These inftruments fhow that John Gower belonged to the county of Kent, and that on the 1ft Auguft 1382 he became legally poffeffed of the manors of Feltwell in Norfolk and Multon in Suffolk; mention is also made of the Manor of Multon in Suffolk in his will, which proves almost to demonstration, that the John Gower referred to in those deeds was also the author of the Confeffio Amantis, who lies buried in St. Saviour's, Southwark, and whofe will has happily been preserved at Lambeth Palace.

On the 6th August 1382, John Gower the poet granted his manors of Feltwell and Multon to Thomas Blakelake, parfon of the church of St. Nicholas at Feltwell and four other persons for the sum of £40 to be paid annually in the conventual Church at Westminster. This indenture was entered in Chancery on the 24th of October in the same year, and the fame grant was repeated on the 29th of February, 1384.†

Two fimilar documents remain to be mentioned. By one dated the 3rd of February 1381, 4 Ric. II. Isabella, daughter of Walter de Huntingfield, remits all the right and claim fhe has from her father to certain lands and tenements belonging to the parishes of Throwley and Stalesfield in the county of Kent to John Gower and John Bowland, clerk. By the other dated the 10th of June

Rot. Claus. 6 Ric. II. p. 1. memb. 27 dorfo. Both documents are in French: Sachent toutes gentz moy Guy de Rouclif' Clerc' auoir donee grauntee et par cefte ma chartre conferme a Johan Gower Efquier de Kent etc. A tous iceux, qui ceftes lettres verront ou orront, Johan Gower Efquier de Kent falutz en dieux. Sachez que come Guy de Rouclyf' Clerc' etc.

+ Rot. Claus. 6 Ric. II. p. 1. membr. 23 dorfo. Rot. Claus. 7 Ric. II. membr. 17 dorfo. fee Retr. Rev. p. 117.

Rot. Claus. 4 Ric. II. membr. 15 dorfo, entered in Chancery on the 28th March.

1385, 8 Ric. II. the fame Ifabella, daughter and heir of Walter de Huntingfield of the county of Kent, remits to John Gower of the fame county for herself and her heirs all actions, plaints, and demands which may have arisen between them from the beginning of the world up to the present day.* In the document dated the 3rd February 1381 Gower is not described as belonging to the county of Kent; perhaps he did not enter upon his property in that county until the year in which the great rebellion of the Commons took place; an event which he has so circumftantially noticed in his Latin poem the Vox Clamantis.

In 39 Edw. III. 1365, William, fon of Sir William Septvanvs, knight, granted to John Gower and his heirs a rental of ten pounds out of the manor of Wygebergh in Effex, and released to him and his heirs by a fecond instrument the manor of Aldyngton in Kent with the rent of 14s. 6d. and of one cock, thirteen hens, and forty eggs out of Maplescomb.† From this it would appear that Gower alfo poffeffed property in Effex.

But the only reliable facts to be gathered from these documents are, that John Gower the poet, if not the direct descendant, was at least the heir of a knight, whose property was fituated in Suffolk, and who was buried in Kent; that the poet called himself efquire of the county of Kent; that he held various manors at least in three, if not in more counties; that he was careful in entering for his own fecurity all leafes and releases to which he was a party on the rolls of Chancery, and that he was a member of an opulent family in the fouth of England.

An extract from the register of Wm de Wykeham

Rot. Claus. 8 Ric. II. membr. 5 dorfo, entered in Chancery on the fame day, in perpetuum quietum clamaffe Johanni Gower de eodem Comitatu.

+ Rot. Clauf. 39 Edw. III. membr. 21 dorfo.

preserved in the regiftry of Winchefter mentions the marriage of a John Gower to Agnes Groundolf at St. Mary Magdalen's, Southwark, on the 25th of January, 1397, and the facts that the poet's wife was named Agnes and that he does not mention any iffue in his will fuggeft the inference that the perfon mentioned is John Gower the poet, and that he was not married until he reached old age.*

His tastes and perhaps refidence in the fame vicinity may have occafioned an intimacy between him and his great contemporary and brother poet Chaucer, who like himself was connected with the county of Kent; but we do not find any evidence to show that they were fellow students either at Oxford or in the Temple: although when Chaucer, foon after the acceffion of Richard II., was fent on a miffion to the Continent, he, in a deed dated the 21ft May, 1378, appointed John Gower and Richard Forrester his attorneys during his abfence. That the two poets were friends, and confidered each other fellow labourers, is fatisfactorily confirmed by the compliments they pay each other in fome of their works. Chaucer inferts at the end of Troilus and Crefeide a dedication:

"O morall Gower, this booke I direct To thee and to the philofophicall Strode,

* Willelmus permiffione divina Wyntonienfis Epifcopus, dilecto in Chrifto filio, domino Willelmo, capellano parochiali ecclefiæ S. Mariæ Magdalenæ in Suthwerk, noftræ diocefis, falutem, gratium, et benedictionem. Ut matrimonium inter Joannem Gower et Agnetem Groundolf dictæ ecclefiæ parochianos fine ulteriore bannorum editione, dumtamen aliud canonicum non obfiftat, extra ecclefiam parochialem, in Oratorio ipfius Joannis Gower infra hofpicium cum in prioratu B. Mariæ de Overee in Suthwerk prædicta fituatum, folempnizare valeas licenciam tibi tenore præfentium, quatenus ad nos attinet concedimus fpecialem. In cujus rei teftimonium figillum noftrum fecimus his apponi. Dat. in manerio noftro de alta clera vicefimo quinto die menfis Januarii A. D. 1397, et noftræ confecrationis 31m0.

+ Nicolas, Life of Chaucer, pp. 37, 125.