describes it as a small but elegant castle, on the top of a woody hill, commanding a pleasant prospect, and lighted by windows on every side; the ruins are visible on the right hand of the road from London to Bath.

It is quite probable that, if Chaucer did not reside here. during much of the last four years of his valuable lifenamely, from 1396 to 1400-he repeatedly visited the place. Evelyn says, in his Sylva, that at Castle Donington is a famous oak called 'Chaucer's Oak,' under which he wrote several poems; and, moreover, that Chaucer planted three oaks The King's Oak,' 'The Queen's Oak,' and 'Chaucer's.' Osterre says that Chaucer and Wickliffe frequently met, and that the abbot and monks of Leicester dreaded Chaucer's poetry more than Wickliffe's preaching; that a famous hunter was abbot in those days at Leicester, Sir William de Clowne by name, and that his skill as a hare-hunter was so great that the king and his nobles paid him an annual pension that they might hunt with him, and that he is one of the characters intended in The Monk and the Friar.

The subject is surrounded with obscurity. We find Chaucer in 1359 at Woodstock-at that time a royal residence, and the birthplace of the Black Prince. He was banished there because of his Lollard tendencies; and in that pleasant retreat he wrote the Romaient of the Rose, containing bitter invectives against priestcraft. There he resided upwards of thirty years, and during that time must. have had frequent opportunities of meeting the Princess

Joan. Both her sons by Thomas Holland were then residing at Castle Donington, where she herself, no doubt, would occasionally resort after the death of the Black Prince in 1376, as she is described by an old chronicle 'passionately fond of her first-born sons.' What so likely as that she would invite Chaucer to Castle Donington, and thereby facilitate his intercourse with Wickliffe, whose convert she was, and who at that time preached all over the country? Wickliffe died in 1384, the Princess Joan in 1385, and the poet Chaucer in 1400; and after a lapse of nearly five hundred years, the recollection of these three personages, who occupy such distinguished and prominent. places in the page of history, as the greatest reformer, the greatest beauty, and the greatest poet of that age, imparts an interest to the spot they may all have inhabited or visited together.

Godwin, in his Life of Chaucer, in two quarto volumes (1803), improves upon the several details of his abode at Castle Donington, by telling us that the Duke of Lancaster purchased the castle, and bestowed it upon Chaucer, being 'determined in the feudal sense to ennoble him!'—although he elsewhere suggests that the circumstances of Chaucer himself might be considered as rendering it somewhat improbable that he had made such an acquisition toward the close of his life.'

Mr. Robert Bell, in his annotated edition of the poet, says that, 'even if Chaucer's necessities throughout the period when he is supposed to have kept up the costly

establishment at Castle Donington were not conclusive against its probability, it is discredited by other circumstances. Donington Castle became the property of Sir John Phelip, the first husband of Chaucer's granddaughter. This gentleman died in 1415; and there is no evidence of any previous connection of any member of Chaucer's family with Donington Castle; nor is there any ground for supposing that Sir John Phelip's tenure commenced till after Chaucer's death. Upon the subsequent marriage of Sir John Phelip's widow, it passed into the possession of her second husband, the Duke of Suffolk.

'The story of his residence in Berkshire is further shown to be groundless, by the ascertained fact that Chaucer was unquestionably living in London during the last three years of his life; and that on Christmas Eve, 1399, he entered upon the lease of a house in Westminster for a term of fifty-three years, at the annual rent of £2, 13s. 4d. Had he been residing in Berkshire, it is not likely that at his advanced age he would have come up to London and encumbered himself with another establishment. The tenement was situated in the garden of the Chapel of the Blessed Mary of Westminster, said to be very nearly the same spot on which Henry VII.'s chapel stands; and it was devised to Chaucer by Robert Hermodesworth, a monk, with the consent of the abbot and convent of that place.'

Chaucer died here, 25th October 1400. Soon after Chaucer's death, Sir Hugh Shirley was appointed governor of the castle, and it was incorporated with the Duchy of

Lancaster. During the Wars of the Roses, the castle and town were true to the Red Rose, and the Lancastrian party held it. Edward Iv., being in peaceable possession of the throne, granted the stewardship, in 1461, of the castle and manor to Sir William Hastings for distinguished services: he was chamberlain to Edward IV.

After passing through various hands, a descendant of this Sir William Hastings (George Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon) purchased, in 1505, from Robert Earl of Essex and others, the Castle and Park of Donington, with all the herbage, pannage, and agistments thereof. The castle 'he quite ruined,' but built a 'fair house' in the neighbourhood. Many martial trophies have been found at different times among the ruins, such as chain-armour, daggers, a battleaxe, cannon-balls, etc.

In Domesday Book, there was at Dunitone' a mill of 10s. 8d. value, and a wood twelve furlongs long and eight broad. No doubt the present park and king's mills are a portion of the property thus named in the Conqueror's survey. Many of the early Saxon writers refer to immense forests of oak-trees which covered this part of England; and there are individual trees standing in Donington Park which must have formed part of these forests. One which goes by the name of 'Daniel Lambert' is fifteen yards in circumference fifteen feet above its base. This giant of the forest has no doubt flourished in vigour and beauty for a thousand years.

The offices of constableship, etc., of Donington Castle

appear to have been hereditary in the family of De Staunton. Thomas de Staunton, in the time of Richard II., was high steward. His descendant Robert de Staunton, it is probable, was slain in battle. His granddaughter, and sole heiress of his son, was married in 1423 to Ralph Shirley, Esq., son of Sir Ralph Shirley, Knight, a distinguished commander at the battle of Agincourt; and from this union. of the Stauntons and Shirleys have sprung many mighty men of renown, amongst the rest Sir Robert Shirley, Baronet,

'Whose singular praise it is

To have done the best things in the worst times,

And hoped them in the most calamitous.'

The son of this Sir Robert, in reward for his special services rendered to King Charles by his father, was in 1677 created Lord Ferrers, and in 1711 Viscount Tamworth and Earl Ferrers.1

1 See Dr. Wilson Pearson; in the Journal of the British Archaological Association, 1863.