Be chosen in two quarters where he has worked with materials of the most widel

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King Richard II, who had succeeded to his grandfather in 1377,--one
of those matrimonial missions which, in the days of both Plantagenets
and Tudors, formed
so large a part of the functions of European diplomacy, and which
not unfrequently, as in this case
at least ultimately, came to nothing. A later
journey in May of the same year took Chaucer once more to Italy,
whither he had been sent with Sir Edward Berkeley to treat with
Bernardo Visconti, joint lord of Milan, and "scourge of Lombardy,"
and Sir John Hawkwood--the former of whom finds a place in that brief
mirror of magistrates, the "Monk's Tale." It was on this occasion
that of the two persons whom, according to custom, Chaucer appointed
to appear for him in the Courts during
his absence, one was John Gower, whose name as
that of the second poet of his age is indissolubly linked with
Chaucer's own. So far, the new reign, which had opened amidst doubts
and difficulties for the country, had to the faithful servant of the
dynasty brought an increase of royal goodwill. In 1381--after the
suppression of the great rebellion of
the villeins--King
Richard II had married the princess whose name for a season linked
together the history of two countries the destinies of which had
before that age, as they have since, lain far asunder. Yet both
Bohemia and England, besides the nations which

received fr