Edward III (1312-1377), King of England, who granted the lordship of Mann to William Montacute.

The grant is dated in the seventh year of his reign, 1333, and opens in the usual form: the King, to all to whom these presents may come, greeting, know ye that by the consent of the prelates, lords and barons. Manx writers translate it from Cumming's notes to Sacheverell and from Oliver's Monumenta.

They also give it a colour beyond the legal one. One account has it that where Edward I had broken King John's papal yoke of tribute from England's neck, it was his grandson Edward III who enabled his friend William Montacute, first Earl of Salisbury, as the heir of Reginald, to set the golden crown of Man upon his own head. The same writer notes that the Montacutes were no friends of Rome and belonged to the party of John of Gaunt, the protector of Wycliffe, so that the change of lordship carried a religious direction as well as a dynastic one.

The recovery of the Island was Montacute's own work and the King's approbation followed it. The Wiltshire account is that the earl drove the Scots out, recovered the seigniory and crown from Edward III, and by his approbation was called King of Man.