nutes Master Geoffrey has jostled against the friar and contrived to
pick a quarrel with him. Hereupon followed a lively game at
single-stick, in which, no doubt, Chaucer's fellow-students backed
loudly the law against the church. At first the friar showed himself
no mean hand with the quarter-staff. But by degrees he began to give
way before his more active antagonist, and when the fray was over the
churchman had learned in good earnest what was meant by the strong arm
of the law; young Chaucer was, however, afterward punished for his
misdeed, by being brought before a magistrate, reprimanded, and fined
as a breaker of the peace; all of which could not exactly have added
to the respectability of the legal brotherhood. Soon after this
Chaucer gave up the law, which was, in truth, entirely unsuited to
him.

By some means, perhaps through the good offices of a friend, he now
contrived to get introduced at Court, where his winning face and
tongue quickly brought him into favor with the royal family. John of
Gaunt, King Edward's third son, who was then not the "time-honored
Lancaster" of after-days, but a gay young prince, took a special fancy
to Chaucer. Prince and subject were, without doubt, well agreed in the
way they liked to amuse themselves, and probably they carried on many
a wild frolic together. This early intimacy ripened into a solid
friendship, which lasted throughout their lives.

After a while John of Gaunt determined to become a steady married man.
A rich bride was found for him in Blanche, the heiress of Lancaster.
She was a gentle lady, who yielded up readily to her princely husband
the revenues and the other privileges which were hers as a countess in
her own right; and who, after a few years of quiet married life, spent
chiefly at her northern castle, passed away softly from the earth,
without dreaming that her son was to be the future king of England,
and that her family title was in after-days to become the watch-word
on many a bloody field of civil strife.

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 wri