Ample provision was also made for the lay officials: the laity, at all events, were to have no grievances. Of course the chief stewards took care to be compensated. The chief steward of Burton Abbey was George, Earl of Huntingdon, and his annual fee was £6 13s. 4d.; in Mary’s reign his successor, Francis, was in receipt of £3 6s. 8d. At the dissolution of Dieulacres “my lord of Darby, Stuard of the Seid monastery,” whose fee had not been allowed by the Commissioners of _Valor Ecclesiasticus_, received a pension of £2. William Davenport lost £1 6s. 8d. and received £4;[214] John Cordon, 13s. 4d. and £1; Humfry Whitney, £2 and £3 6s. 8d. Besides these, two other bailiffs, a forester and two stewards, and eleven other men, received “fees and annuities.” At Stafford Lord Ferrers, the High Steward, was pensioned (40s.) with thirteen other lay officials, including Richard Torner, baker. Rewards were given to twenty-nine “servants,” of whom seven were also pensioned. There were four “plough-drivers” who received 1s. 8d. each, and six women. John Coke, the bailiff of Dudley, held his office by an appointment for life, and at the Dissolution the terms of the agreement were carefully respected, for the grant of the priory and its possessions to Sir John Dudley in March, 1541, was expressly charged with the annual payment of John Coke’s fee of £2. In 1541 there are records of the half-yearly payments (on April 20th and October 4th) to Nicholas Whitney, of Dieulacres, and his wife Mary. The payment appears again in 1542. The lesser “servants,” labourers, “launders and pore bedewomen,” and the like, were paid off with lump sums, and no further responsibility in their case remained. Of course many of the bailiffs and stewards continued in their old posts under the new owners. The Dissolution was the reverse of a loss to them. But they had to find sureties and guarantees for their honesty. For instance, Humphrey Whitney, of Middlewich, bailiff of “Wycch,” is noted in 1541 as finding sureties to the amount of £120; Roland Heth, of Tutbury, bailiff of Wetton, etc., 100 marks, and of Elkeston, 40 marks; Geoffrey Legh, of Berreston, Salop, bailiff of Great Gate, £120; and William Davenport, bailiff of Abbots Frith, etc., £200. An interesting entry of the same date shows Sampson Erdeswick, of Sandon, becoming sureties for Robert Harcourt, bailiff of lands which had belonged to Ronton Abbey, for 200 marks.[215] Even if it were intended that the pensions and annuities should be loyally paid the charge was a wise one to incur. It saved appearances by appearing to respect “vested interests”; it effectually prevented agitation against the Government by any who desired to retain their pensions; and it was a charge which would steadily decrease and eventually disappear in the ordinary course of nature.