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 the preface to "The Boke of Eneydos compyled by Vargyle" (Modern English: "The Book of the Aeneid, compiled by Virgil") (1490): But I pray mayster John Skelton, late created poete laureate in the unyversite of Oxenforde, to oversee and correct this sayd booke. The academic use of the term laureate became associated again with royalty when King James I created a pension for Ben Jonson in 1617, although there is no formal record extant. He was succeeded by William Davenant. The royal office Poet Laureate was officially conferred by letters patent on John Dryden in 1668, after Davenant's death, and