which would hardly have been made in the year 1390, or even 1393.[Pg xxiv] No doubt those copies which contained in the preface the statement that the book was written at the command of the king and for his sake, and in the epilogue the presentation of the completed book to him (3050* ff.), if they had also appended to them the Latin lines which commend the work to the earl of Derby, may be said to have contained in a certain sense a double dedication, the compliment being divided between the king and his brilliant cousin, and very probably a copy which was intended for the court would be without the concluding lines, as we find to be the case with some manuscripts; but the suggestion that the expressions of loyalty and the praises of Richard as a ruler which we find in the first epilogue are properly to be called inconsistent with a dedication of the poem to Henry of Lancaster, his cousin and counsellor, is plausible only in the light of later events, which could not be foreseen by the poet, in the course of which Henry became definitely the opponent of Richard and finally took the lead in deposing him. It is true that the earl of Derby had been one of the lords appellant in 1387, but after the king’s favourites had been set aside, he was for the time reconciled to Richard, and he could not in any sense be regarded as the leader of an opposition party. That Gower, when he became disgusted with Richard II, should have set Henry’s name in the Prologue in place of that of the king, as representing his ideal of knighthood and statesmanship, may be regarded either as a coincidence with the future events, or as indicating that Gower had some discrimination in selecting a possible saviour of society; but it is certain that at this time the poet can have had no definite idea that his hero would become a candidate for the throne.

[Pg xxiv]

The political circumstances of the period during which the Confessio Amantis was written and revised are not very easy to disentangle. We may take it as probable that the plan of its composition, under the combined influence of Chaucer’s Legend of Good WomenJ and of the royal command, may have been laid about the year 1386. Before this time Richard would scarcely have been regarded by Gower as responsible for the government, and he would naturally look hopefully upon the young sovereign, then just entering upon his duties, as one who with proper admonition and due choice of advisers might turn out to be a good[Pg xxv] ruler. During the succeeding years the evil counsellors of the king were removed by the action of the lords appellant and the Parliament, and in the year 1389 a moderate and national policy seemed to have been 

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