'Until he receive the equivalent in land and rent': The use of annuities as endowment patronage in the reign of Edward III

Abstract

This article investigates Edward III's use of annuities for endowing a number of men promoted, or to be promoted, to the parliamentary peerage. It examines the two types of annuity Edward used - those paid through the exchequer and those paid direct from royal revenue sources - and the way he used them. Exchequer annuities are shown to have been somewhat more reliable - though, for a number of reasons, most of Edward's 'new men' seem to have preferred the source-based variety. More importantly, it argues that Edward's use of annuities was directed primarily not at bettering permanently the position of many of these men and their families, but rather towards increasing royal control - dependent, as annuitants were, upon the king's continuing favour. Through this programme Edward III was able to influence the composition and behaviour of the parliamentary peerage to a point where his rule has become a byword for good royal/noble relations in the later middle ages. © Institute of Historical Research 1997.