Philip de la Vache ""The Canterbury Tales"". However, the reference to Vache in Chaucer's poem may on good grounds also be a pun on his own name. The phrase Vache, leve! in the first line of the Envoy corresponds to medieval French Vache, reïs!, 'cow, leave!'. The French phase reïs, Vache!, (REISVACHE), when reversed, becomes CHAVSIER, the French form of the poet's name (this is a so-called palindrome). In the First Book of Kings in the Old Testament, the cows on their way to Beth Shemesh are likened to holy men, or monks on their way to the Heavenly Jerusalem. Chaucer may have regarded
Thomas Fleetwood (of the Vache) 1548, which is still used by the family. His first wife was Barbara Francis, by whom he had three sons and a daughter. His second wife was Bridget, the youngest child of Sir John Spring of Lavenham, Suffolk, with whom he had seven sons and seven daughters, including William, George, Henry and Joyce, grandmother of the leading statesman Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds. Thomas Fleetwood (of the Vache) Thomas Fleetwood (1517/18 – 1570), of London, The Vache, Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire and Rossall, Lancashire, was an English politician. He was a member of parliament, a judge, and Master of