If there had bene in every shyre but one solempne lybrary, to the preseruacyon of those noble workes, it had bene yet sumwhat. But to destroy all without consydyracyon is and wyll be vnto Englande for euer a moste horryble infamy amonge the graue senyours of other nacyons. A greate nombre of them whych purchased those superstycyouse mansyons, reserued of those bokes some to ... scoure theyr candelstyckes, and some to rubbe theyr bootes. Some they sold to the grossers and sopesellers, and some they sent ouer see to the boke bynders, not in small nombre, but at times whole shyppes full, to the wonderynge of the foren nacyons. I know a merchaunt man which shall at this tyme be namelesse, that boughte the contentes of two noble lybraryes for. xl. shyllynges pryce, a shame it is to be spoken. This stuffe hath he occupyed in the stede of graye paper by the space of more than these .x. yeares, and yet he hath store ynough for many yeares to come[443]. The Universities, though untouched by the suppression, were not allowed to remain long at peace. In 1549, commissioners were sent by Edward the Sixth to Oxford and Cambridge. They considered that it fell within their province to reform the libraries as well as those who used them; and they did their work with a thoroughness that under other circumstances would have been worthy of commendation. Anthony Wood[444] has told us in eloquent periods, where sorrow struggles with indignation, how the college libraries were treated; how manuscripts which had nothing superstitious about them except a few rubricated initials, were carried through the city on biers to the market-place and there consumed. Of the treatment meted out to the public library of the University he gives an almost identical account[445]. This library--now the central portion of the Bodleian--had been completed about 1480. It was well stocked with manuscripts of value, the most important of which, in number about 600[446], had been given by Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, between 1439 and 1446. His collection was that of a cultivated layman, and was comparatively poor in theological literature. Yet in this home of all that was noble in literature and splendid in art (for the Duke's copies are said to have been the finest that could be bought) did this crew of ignorant fanatics cry havoc, with such fatal success that only three MSS. now survive; and on January 25, 1555-56, certain members of the Senate were appointed "to sell, in the name of the University, the book-desks in the public library. The books had all disappeared; what need then to retain the shelves and stalls, when no one thought of replacing their contents, and when the University could turn an honest penny by their sale[447]?"