Stories about Chaucer, debt and prison have been circulating since at least the sixteenth century. William Godwin claimed that in the latter stages of his life Chaucer was a “prisoner, embarrassed in his circumstances." During 1388 to 1399, there were several separate suits that named Chaucer as a defendant, but the most serious was one suit involving a series of actions brought against him by the widow of a former business colleague. It was around this time that Chaucer began to have difficulty in obtaining an annuity that had been granted by Richard II. The poet had already taken steps to prove his claim to the annuity shortly after Richard's deposition, but the money was not forthcoming and the poet composed the begging poem known as “The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse,” a humorous and skillful, four-stanza work that contained an envoi that directly addressed Henry IV.