On Christmas eve, 1399, he covenanted for a lease of 53 years (a long term for one at his age to contemplate) of a house situate in the garden of the Chapel of St. Mary, Westminster, near Westminster Abbey, at the annual rent of 2l. 13s. 4d. This lease, from the Custos Capellae Beatae Mariae to Geoffrey Chaucer, dated Dec. 24, 1399, is in the Muniment Room of Westminster Abbey. The house stood on or near the spot now occupied by Henry the Seventh's Chapel[158]. We find, however, that he had only a life-interest in the lease, as the premises were to revert to the Custos Capellae if the tenant died within the term.
§ 39. 1400. In 1400, payments to him are recorded on Feb. 21, of the pension of 20l. granted by king Richard[159], in respect of the half-year ending at Michaelmas, 1399; and on June 5, the sum of 5l., being part of a sum of 8l. 13s. 5d. due for a portion of the next half-year, calculated as commencing on Oct. 21, 1399, and terminating on the last day of March, 1400, was sent him by the hands of Henry Somere[160].
We should notice that this Henry Somere was, at the time, the Clerk of the Receipt of the Exchequer; he was afterwards Under Treasurer, at which time Hoccleve addressed to him a Balade, printed in Furnivall's edition of Hoccleve's Works, at p. 59, followed by a Roundel containing a pun upon his name; as well as a second Balade, addressed to him after he had been made a Baron, and promoted to be Chancellor (see the same, p. 64). Perhaps he was related to John Somere, the Frere, mentioned in the Treatise on the Astrolabe (Prol. 62).
Chaucer died on Oct. 25, 1400, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The date of his death is only known from an inscription on the tomb of gray marble erected near his grave, in 1556, by Nicholas Brigham, a man of letters, and an admirer of the poet's writings; but it is probably correct, and may have rested on tradition[161]. We have no note of him after June 5, and no record of a payment of the pension in October. According to Stowe, Chaucer's grave is in the cloister, where also lies the body of 'Henrie Scogan, a learned poet,' i. e. the Scogan who was Chaucer's friend.
§ 40. CHAUCER'S ARMS AND TOMB. 'In front of the tomb,' says Sir. H. Nicolas, 'are three panelled divisions of starred quarterfoils (_sic_), containing shields with the Arms of Chaucer, viz. Per pale argent and gules, a bend counterchanged; and the same Arms also occur in an oblong compartment at the back of the recess, where the following inscription was placed, but which is now almost obliterated, from the partial decomposition and crumbling state of the marble. A small whole-length portrait of Chaucer was delineated _in plano_ on the north side of the inscription, but not a vestige of it is left; and the whole of the recess and canopy has recently been coloured black.