The last Abbot of Furness was Roger Pele, or Pile, who was elevated to that dignity in about the year 1532; he surrendered the abbey to the King, April 9, 1537. The suppression of Furness Abbey must have been for a time very severely felt by the inhabitants of the district, as from it emanated much hospitality, and to it all the natives looked for the education of their children and for such religious help as was usually obtained from these houses. Between the abbots and their tenants there appears to have been carried on a system of barter and exchange, some of the details of which are preserved in the evidence brought forward in support of a petition made in the duchy court in 25 Elizabeth (1582-83) by the tenants of Walney against the Queen's Attorney-General, who had obtained a lease of the late dissolved monastery. One of the witnesses, who was then seventy-eight years old, said that they (the petitioners) and their ancestors, whose estates they severally held, used to pay and deliver to the Abbot certain "domestical" provisions, such as calves, sheep, wheat, barley, oats, and the like, and for recompense they not only enjoyed their burgages or messuages, but also received from the abbey great relief, sustentation, and commodities for themselves and their children, viz., all the tenants had weekly one ten-gallon barrel of ale; the tenants of Newbarns and Hawcoat had all the worthings[177] of all the horse and oxen (except those at the Abbot's stables); the tenants had also a weekly allowance of coarse wheat bread, iron for their husbandry, gear and timber for the repairs of their houses. In addition to these grants, all tenants who had a plough could send two men to dine at the monastery on one day in each week from Martinmas (November 11) to Pentecost (Whitsunday); and the children of the tenants who had found the required provision were educated in the school of the monastery free, and allowed every day a dinner or a supper; and if any of them became good scholars, they were often made into monks. The question at issue between the tenants and the Attorney-General was that whilst he demanded the provisions, he claimed exemption from making the recompenses, alleging that the abbots had merely given the food out of benevolence and devotion to their neighbours. The result of the petition was in favour of the tenants. The condition of the abbey itself in 1774 is thus described by West[178]: "The magnitude of the abbey may be known from the dimensions of the ruins, and enough is standing to show the style of the architecture, which breathes the plain simplicity of taste which is found in most houses belonging to the Cistercian monks which were erected about the same time with Furness Abbey. "The round and pointed arches occur in the doors and windows. The fine clustered Gothic and the heavy plain Saxon pillars stand contrasted. The walls show excellent masonry, are in many places counter-arched, and the ruins show a strong cement.