Though the Act which authorised the suppression of the Priory was passed in April, 1536, it was not until the following year that the King's Commissioners proceeded to the accomplishment of their task. The Earls of Derby and Sussex, with their satellites, Southwell, Tunstall, Leybourne, Byron, Sandford, and Holcroft, were deputed to undertake the work; fit instruments they were, and very effectually they accomplished their purpose. They demolished the walls of the cloisters and levelled to the dust the other portions of the monastic buildings which then extended across the river on arches up to the tower gateway, the only vestige of the house which now remains. The work of destruction fell less heavily upon the church, not because it was less suited to the purposes of the levellers, but because it was parochial as well as monastic, and the parishioners claimed it as belonging to them, though it must be confessed they had not done much to entitle them to consideration at the hands of the rapacious Henry. If tradition is to be relied on, they had urged their prior to join the insurrection instigated by the northern monks, commonly known as the "Pilgrimage of Grace," but that cautious and time-serving ecclesiastic fled to Preston, where the Earl of Derby was engaged raising an army for the suppression of the revolt, and claimed his protection, returning to his Priory only to be a few short months later ejected from it for ever. When the parishioners interposed, pleading that the church was parochial and therefore beyond the control of his Majesty's Commissioners, the matter was referred to head-quarters in these words:-- Item, for ye Church of Cartmell, being the Priorie and also ye P'ich Church, whether to stand unplucked down or not? Answer--Ord. by Mr. Chancellor of the Duchie to stand styll. It'm, for a suet of coopes (suit of copes) claymed by ye inhabitants of Cartmell to belong to ye Church thereof, the gift of oon Brigg? Answer--Ord. that the P'ochians shall have them styll. Item, for a chales (chalice), a Masse Booke, a Vestyment, with other things necessarie for a P'sh Church claymed by saide P'ochians to be customablie found by ye P'son of said Church? No answer. Though the commissioners were restrained in their "unplucking down" of the church, much havoc and destruction had been done to the sacred fane before their hands were stayed. They destroyed the painted windows, mutilated the carved work, stripped off the roof of the Piper choir and other parts of the fabric, and thus effectually got rid of the inmates, and in that state the church was allowed to remain for a period of eighty years, when Mr. George Preston, of Holker, with some assistance from the parishioners, repaired the dilapidated edifice generally, and decorated the inside with a stuccoed ceiling, and the choir and chancel with a profusion of curiously and elaborately carved wood work.