On the accession of
Henry IV. (1399) an additional pension of 40 marks was given him. In the
same year he took a lease of a house at Westminster, where he probably
_d._, October 25, 1400. He is buried in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey,
where a monument to him was erected by Nicholas Brigham, a minor poet of
the 16th century. According to some authorities he left two sons, Thomas,
who became a man of wealth and importance, and Lewis, who died young, the
little ten-year-old boy to whom he addressed the treatise on the
_Astrolabe_. Others see no evidence that Thomas was any relation of the
poet. An Elizabeth C., placed in the Abbey of Barking by John of Gaunt,
was probably his _dau._ In person C. was inclined to corpulence, "no
poppet to embrace," of fair complexion with "a beard the colour of ripe
wheat," an "elvish" expression, and an eye downcast and meditative.
Of the works ascribed to C. several are, for various reasons, of greater
or less strength, considered doubtful. These include _The Romaunt of the
Rose_, _Chaucer's Dream_, and _The Flower and the Leaf_. After his return
from Italy about 1380 he entered upon his period of greatest
productiveness: _Troilus and Criseyde_ (1382?), _The Parlement of Foules_
(1382?), _The House of Fame_ (1384?), and _The Legende of Goode Women_
(1385), belong to this time.
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