elected by the monks themselves, who were sure to have an eye to their own ease, and would tend to choose those whose discipline was lax. But it must be a prejudiced person indeed who will accept word for word the catalogues of the religious persons reported guilty of the lowest and most degrading forms of vice, which Legh and Layton seemed to delight in sending to their master. Parliament, however, was too completely in Cromwell’s hands fairly to judge of the character of the visitors, or of the circumstances under which they drew up their ‘comperta,’ and the report was strong and clear; so it was not long before the first Act for the dissolution of the smaller monasteries was passed. The statute declared that ‘all Relygeous Houses of Monkes Chanons and Nonnes, whiche may not dyspend Manors, Landes, Tenementes, & Heredytamentes above the clere yerly Value of ij C li. are geven to the Kinges Highnes, his heires and successours for ever[401].’ Another Act was passed at the same time establishing a Court of Augmentations of the King’s revenue[402]. Power was given to this court to collect the spoils, lands, and buildings of the suppressed abbeys, and dispose of them in the way most profitable to the Crown. It consisted of a chancellor, treasurer, solicitor, and thirty subordinates. The chief persons in it were friends and hirelings of Cromwell’s. In April commissions were sent to the principal men in every county[403], authorizing them to inquire further into the state of each house, to make inventories and estimates of their property, and to ascertain the number of monks who desired ‘capacities’ for entering secular life, and the number who intended to remove to some other religious house. It is significant that the reports of these men, concerning the character and morality of the inmates, are uniformly of a more favourable description than those of Layton and Legh. The process of the surrender immediately followed the first visit of the Commissioners. They sent in their report to the Court of Augmentations, which then issued its final orders for the dissolution of the house, and its conversion to the King’s use. A ‘receiver’ was appointed to plunder the church, and sell the lead, bells, &c. An interesting letter, from an agent of Cromwell’s to his master, sheds some light on the usual methods of these officials. ‘We ar pluckyng down an hygher vaute,’ writes the receiver, ‘borne up by fower thicke and grose pillars xiiij fote fro syde to syde, abowt in circumference xlv fote ... we browght from London xvij persons, 3 carpentars, 2 smythes, 2 plummars, and on that kepith the fornace. Euery of these attendith to hys own office: x of them hewed the walles abowte, amonge the whych ther were 3 carpentars: thiese made proctes to undersette wher the other cutte away, thother brake and cutte the waules[404].’ Coupled with reports like this, came curiously confused accounts of the saleable articles of the house, which had been disposed of, such as