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
Laureate a development of the practice of earlier times, when minstrels and versifiers were part of the retinue of the King; it is recorded that Richard the Lionheart had a versificator regis (Gulielmus Peregrinus), and Henry III of England had a versificator (Master Henry); in the 15th century John Kay, also a versifier, described himself as Edward IV of England's "humble poet laureate." Moreover, the crown had shown its patronage in various ways; Chaucer had been given a pension and a perquisite of wine by Edward III of England, and Spenser a pension by Queen Elizabeth I. W. Hamilton classes Chaucer,