Again the case was referred to arbitration and the decision is unknown. It is interesting to find that Leke was fully reconciled to the friars before his death[634]. The poverty of the brethren was aggravated by the irregularity with which payments, on which they might justly reckon, were made. One of their chief sources of income was a royal grant of 50 marcs per annum during the King’s pleasure, to be paid in equal portions at Easter and Michaelmas. It was first instituted by Edward I[635] in 1289, and was continued by all the kings (with the exception of Edward V) to the Dissolution[636]. Sometimes the sum was paid direct from the treasury; but often (and this seems to have been the general custom as regards royal benefactions to religious houses) a sheriff or other officer was held responsible for the payment; either he was instructed to send the requisite amount to the Exchequer, or he paid the money directly; and the sums which he paid were accredited to him when he produced his accounts at the sessions of the Exchequer. As may be proved by many instances, the system did not conduce to regularity of payment. Edward II, in December 1313, ordered Richard Kellawe, Bishop of Durham[637], ‘to send to our exchequer at Westminster within fifteen days of the day of St. Hilary,’ ten marks in partial satisfaction of the grant[638]. But though this sum was to be the first charge on the arrears in the Durham diocese of the tax of one-half of their income[639] imposed on the clergy by Edward I (A. D. 1294), and though writs were repeatedly[640] issued to enforce payment, we find that on the 4th of June, 1315, nothing had been done, ‘_unde vehementer admiramur_[641].’ The fifty marks were never made a definite fixed charge on the revenues of any one county nor were they levied year by year as a single sum; each year some sheriff or bishop was made responsible for a fraction of the whole amount. The annuity was on several occasions in arrear. Thus Henry IV in the first year of his reign granted the friars ‘of his abundant favour’ (_de uberiori gratia nostra_) all the arrears that had accumulated during the reign of his predecessor[642]. Affairs of State made themselves felt in the Franciscan convent. In 1450 Parliament passed a general act of resumption, annulling all grants made since the King’s accession, and the annuity to the friars ceased to be paid[643]. The brethren represented to Henry VI the hardships which this loss of revenue inflicted on them, and in 1453 the King ordered the arrears to be paid, ‘in order that the same warden and friars may be in a happier frame of mind (_hillariorem animum habeant_) to offer up special prayers for us to the Highest[644].’