Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and October 1892, there was a break of four years as a mark of respect; Tennyson's laureate poems "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington" and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" were particularly cherished by the Victorian public. Five poets, Thomas Gray, Samuel Rogers, Walter Scott, Philip Larkin and Seamus Heaney, turned down the laureateship. The holder of the position as of 2018 is Carol Ann Duffy, who was appointed in May 2009 on a fixed ten-year term. The origins of the poet laureateship date back to 1616 when James I of England granted a pension to
Poet laureate of the office of Poet Laureate of England. The office developed from earlier practice when minstrels and versifiers were members of the king's retinue. Richard Cœur-de-Lion had a "versificator regis" (English: "king's poet"), Gulielmus Peregrinus (William the Pilgrim), and Henry III had a "versificator" named Master Henry. In the fifteenth century, John Kay, a versifier, described himself as Edward IV's "humble poet laureate". According to Wharton, King Henry I paid 10 shillings a year to a "versificator regis". Geoffrey Chaucer (1340–1400) was called Poet Laureate, being granted in 1389 an annual allowance of wine. W. Hamilton describes Chaucer, Gower, Kay,