Edward III died on 21 June 1377. Later that year, or early the next, Peter de Brewes also died. De Brewes had been one of the king's closest companions and most trusted servants throughout much of the second half of his reign. Knighted at the age of twenty-six on the battlefield at Crécy (1346), de Brewes was immediately thereafter retained as a knight of the royal household. He continued to serve as a household knight (and, after 1364, a chamber knight) until the king's death in 1377, a total of thirty-one years. During this time, de Brewes served on each of the king's military expeditions, and was rewarded with annuities worth over £100.. While de Brewes’ length of service was unmatched in the fourteenth century, he was just one of 284 men who are known to have served as household knights under Edward III (see Appendix 1). Edward's practise of retaining knights through the royal household built on a long-established tradition: during the Middle Ages, kings of England (and, indeed, rulers across Europe) routinely chose to retain a small number of knights in their personal service as part of their households. These knights offered each monarch a core group of loyal and talented men on whom they could rely for military service and political support. Indeed, household knights played a leading role in raising royal armies, leading troops in war, and acting as favourable advocates of royal policy both in parliament and in England's localities. Studying them thus allows us to uncover a great deal about the ways in which wars were fought and kingdoms ruled in the Middle Ages. And yet, there is still a great deal concerning the medieval household knight about which relatively little is known. How and why were household knights retained? Who was chosen to serve in such a capacity? What functions did they perform? And what rewards did they receive in return for their service? In what follows, this book will attempt to answer these four main questions by focusing on the household knights of Edward III. In doing so, it will not only enable new insights to be gleaned into the household knight in later medieval England, but will allow for a new reading of Edward III's reign to be offered, through the lens of this small but significant group of individuals.