The fiscal problems of Mr Nutbrown’s charity were but part of a very long story which began in the year 1207 with the purchase by the Hospitallers of the Ash advowson. That transaction having cost them ten marks, the Hospitallers contrived an arrangement whereby the church and rectory of Ash were to pay them an annual pension of the same amount for ever. Precisely how or at what time this was done does not appear, but when in the fourteenth century the Crown was showing interest in pensions and such like belonging to the Hospital, a return by the Bishop of Rochester showed that even by then the ten marks had been paid by Ash since olden times. When in 1347 another such return was called for, Bishop Hamo took pains to make it clear that he did not know how, or whether, the Hospitallers were entitled to their tribute;⁷ by then, indeed, the Bishop had himself for some time been questioning their claim.
   Hamo seems first to have taken positive action in the matter in the year 1344; the occasion was the exchange of benefices between William le Galeys and Thomas de Stanton and the Bishop sequestrated the pension pending proof of title. When, a few weeks later, de Stanton appeared before him to further a claim against le Galeys for dilapidations, Hamo personally forbade him to pay the pension until the Hospitallers’ title should have been proved.⁸

   De Stanton was to prove another transitory rector of Ash and in 1345 he set about an exchange of benefices with Robert de Westbury, rector of Sulhampstead Abbott’s in Berkshire. On receiving Thomas’ resignation, Hamo asked the Bishop of Salisbury to institute his successor to Ash and in due course that Bishop certified that he had done so. This was a little awkward since, at much the same time, a writ of prohibition was issued in the name of the King that forbade Hamo from instituting at Ash pending a suit as to the advowson between Otho de Grandison and the Prior of the Hospital. Fortunately, this caused only a temporary flutter in the dovecotes; a few weeks later another writ was issued authorising Hamo to proceed, as John de Stonore, Chief Justice of the Bench had now certified that no such suit was pending. Freed from his dilemma, Hamo promptly sent for Robert and, in the chapel of his manor of Halling, took the new rector’s oath of obedience, issued letters for his induction and sequestrated once more the Hospitallers’ pension. There for a time the matter rested, but within two years the unfortunate Robert found himself balancing his Bishop’s command against a writ in the Common Pleas that required him to answer the Prior of the Hospital for twenty marks, being arrears of a rent of ten marks per annum.⁹