Bale makes him Equitem Auratum & Poetam Laureatum, proving both from his Ornaments on his Monumental Statue in St. Mary Overies Southwark.  Yet he appeareth there neither laureated nor hederated Poet, (except the leaves of the Bays and Ivy be wither’d to nothing, since the erection of the Tomb) but only rosated, having a Chaplet of four Roses about his Head, yet was he in great respect both with King Henry the Fourth, and King Richard the Second, at whose request he wrote his Book called Confessio Amantis, as he relateth in his Prologue to the same Book, in these words,

  As it befell upon a tide,
  As thing, which should tho betide,
  Under the town of New Troie,
  Which toke of Brute his first ioye,
  In Themese, when it was flowende,
  As I by Bote came rowende;
  So as fortune hir tyme sette,
  My leige Lord perchance I mette,
  And so befelle as I cam nigh,
  Out of my Bote, when he me sigh,
  He bad me come into his Barge,
  And when I was with him at large,
  Amonges other things seyde,
  He hath this charge upon me leyde,
  And bad me doe my businesse,
  That to his high worthinesse,
  Some newe thynge I should boke,
  That he hymselfe it might loke,
  After the forme of my writynge,
  And this upon his commandynge
  Myne herte is well the more glad
  To write so as he me bad. 
  And eke my fear is well the lasse,
  That none enuie shall compasse,
  Without a reasonable wite
  To seige and blame that I write,
  A gentill hert his tongue stilleth,
  That it malice none distilleth,
  But preiseth that is to be preised,
  But he that hath his word unpeised,
  And handleth with ronge any thynge,
  I praie unto the heuen kynge,
  Froe such tonges he me shilde,
  And nethelesse this worlde is wilde,
  Of such ianglinge and what befall,
  My kinges heste shall not faile,
  That I in hope to deserue
  His thonke, ne shall his will observe,
  And els were I nought excused.

He was before Chaucer, as born and flourishing before him, (yea, by some accounted his Master) yet was he after Chaucer, as surviving him two years, living to be stark blind, and so more properly termed our English Homer.  His death happened Anno 1402. and was buried at St. Mary Overies in Southwark, on the North side of the said Church, in the Chappel of St. John, where he founded a Chauntry, and left Means for a Mass, (such was the Religion of those times) to be daily sung for him, as also an Obit within the same Church to be kept on Friday after the Feast of St. Gregory.  He lieth under a Tomb of stone, with his Image also of stone over him, the hair of his head auburn long to his shoulders, but curling up, and a small forked beard; on his head a Chaplet, like a Coronet of four