Neither, again, has very much that is relevant come to light concerning the vanished church of the Augustinian canons at Darley. Their abbey, in its time the largest and most important of the religious houses of Derbyshire, was suppressed in the autumn of 1538, as the result of three months’ unremitting pressure on the part of Cromwell’s agent, Thomas Thacker. This man actually wrote, at the close of the first three months, to inform his master how little effect his cajoleries and threats had had upon the abbot; and to solicit the all-powerful minister’s favour and help in securing possession of the house and goods for himself, when he should have succeeded in the design of coercing the unhappy man. It is at least some slight satisfaction to know that Thacker’s petition was disregarded as far as Darley Abbey was concerned. The abbot’s consent to the suppression at length wrung from him, no time was lost before cataloguing and selling the effects of the abbey. The inventory of the sale is dated 24th October (only two days later than the signing of the act of “surrender”), and comprises the “Great Crucyfyx” of the abbey church and “tymber about ... Seint Sythes Chapell,” meaning, obviously, the parclose screens that surrounded it. With the foregoing may be compared the priory church of another Augustinian house, founded in 1172 at Repton. The inventory of the sale, dated likewise in October in the year 1538, specifies, besides the rood, at least six partitions of timber, or parcloses, fencing round the chapels respectively of Our Lady, St. John, St. Nicholas, and St. Thomas. The church, dismantled, as has been stated, under Henry VIII., still continued standing “most beautiful,” according to the testimony of the historian Fuller, until the reign of Queen Mary, when, in a single day, it was utterly demolished by the intruder in occupation, Gilbert Thacker. This miscreant belonged to a family deeply tainted with the guilt of sacrilege. He was, in fact, son and heir of the before-named Thomas Thacker, and becoming alarmed at the news of the rehabilitation of the religious orders, and determined to prevent such an eventuality in the case of Repton Priory, promptly acted on that resolve by destroying, as he himself expressed it, “the nest, for fear the birds should build therein again.” Excavations conducted in 1882 and two successive years on the site of the former church, discovered practically all that is ever likely, under the circumstances, to be learned from investigations on the spot. The results, embodied in two reports by Mr. W. H. St. John Hope, were published in volumes vi. and vii. of the _Journal of the Derbyshire Archæological Society_, from which, as comprising the whole of the available information relevant to the present subject, the following particulars have, for the most part, been extracted.