l6 THE RELIGIOUS PENSION ROLL OF DERBYSHIRE. 



one of the King's commissioners for receiving the surrender of 

 the collegiate church of Southwell. BoUes' avarice and cunning 

 in securing Derbyshire monastic annuities was not his only 

 venture in that field, for the Nottinghamshire commissioners 

 found that he was holding the pension patent of a religious 

 of Worksop priory.* 



It will be noticed in the report that those receiving annuities, 

 as distinct from pensions, were very numerous, and survived in 

 1548 in larger numbers than the religious. This may be readily 

 accounted for, as the annuitants were, as a rule, men in far 

 better and more easy circumstances as compared with the ejected 

 pensioners. Who were these annuitants ? In the vast majority 

 of cases they were friends of the King's visitors and commis- 

 sioners, occasionally local magnates, but oftener humbler folk, 

 who belauded Cromwell and his agents and endeavoured to help 

 them in their suppressive work. The very last use, save sealing 

 the surrender, to which the common seals of the religious houses 

 were frequently put, sometimes even on the very day of the 

 surrender, was the granting of these deceitful and crafty 

 annuities, whereby the commissioners were enabled to recom- 

 pense their tools. In a very small minority of cases, such 

 as that of the corrodyt of Agnes Smythe at 40s. a year, the 

 annuity was one which had been genuinely granted by the 

 Darley convent in reward for some special grant or service. 

 It would also appear that the old annual gift to one Elias 

 RaggeJ of a coat of the best quality, by the same house, was 

 also continued. 



If we look back to the arrangements made by the commissioners 

 on the days when they granted the pensions for the three houses 

 suppressed in 1538, we shall find that these annuities had then 

 their origin, and were not granted, as might have been supposed, 

 to the servants of the convents. In the case of Darley, for the 

 surrender of which Dr. Legh, with William Cavendish as 



* Letters and Papers Henry VIII., xi., 216 ; xiii. (i), 1520; xiii. (2), 491 ; 

 xvi., 93, 275 ; xvii., 220; xviii. (i), 226, etc. 

 t See page 21, note. 

 J See page 30. 



