The will of Thomas Heyroun (see the same Note A) was dated just five days earlier, April 7, 1349, and was also proved in the Hustings Court. He appointed his half-brother, John Chaucer, his executor; and on Monday after the Feast of St. Thomas the Martyr[19] in the same year, John Chaucer, by the description of 'citizen and vintner, executor of the will of my brother Thomas Heyroun,' executed a deed relating to some lands. (Records of the Hustings Court, 23 Edw. III.)
It thus appears that Richard Chaucer and Thomas Heyroun both died in 1349, the year of the first and the most fatal pestilence.
§ 4. JOHN CHAUCER. Of John Chaucer, the poet's father, not many particulars are known. He was born, as we have seen, about 1312, and was not married till 1329, or somewhat later. His wife's name was Agnes, described in 1369 as the kinswoman (consanguinea) and heiress of the city moneyer, Hamo de Copton, who is known to have owned property in Aldgate[20]. He was a citizen and vintner of London, and owned a house in Thames Street[21], close to Walbrook, a stream now flowing underground beneath Walbrook Street[22]; so that it must have been near the spot where the arrival platform of the South-Eastern railway (at Cannon Street) now crosses Thames Street. In this house, in all probability, Chaucer was born; at any rate, it became his own property, as he parted with it in 1380. It is further known that John and Agnes Chaucer were possessed of a certain annual quit-rent of 40d. sterling, arising out of a tenement in the parish of St. Botolph-without-Aldgate[23].
In 1338 (on June 12), John Chaucer obtained letters of protection, being then on an expedition to Flanders, in attendance on the king[24]. Ten years later, in the months of February and November, 1348, he is referred to as being deputy to the king's butler in the port of Southampton[25]. In 1349, as we have seen, he was executor to the will of his half-brother, Thomas Heyroun. There is a mention of him in 1352[26]. His name appears, together with that of his wife Agnes, in a conveyance of property dated Jan. 16, 1366[27]; but he died shortly afterwards, aged about fifty-four. His widow married again in the course of a few months; for she is described in a deed dated May 6, 1367, as being then the wife of Bartholomew atte Chapel, citizen and vintner of London, and lately wife of John Chaucer, citizen and vintner[28]. The date of her death is not known.