We have already perceived that the eyes of Henry VIII were being gradually and steadily opened to the financial possibilities of the clergy. To confiscate the whole of their wealth at once, as it was rumoured was the intention, was an impracticable idea, but the particulars given in _Valor Ecclesiasticus_ showed how it might be possible to proceed in detail. In obtaining those particulars a clearer insight than ever before had been obtained into the circumstances of all the monasteries in England. Royal agents had penetrated further within their walls than they had previously gone. Much information besides what was required for the immediate purpose had been obtained. Gradually Cromwell was able to proceed in his grander scheme, and to accumulate materials upon which he might build up a case against the monasteries. Legislation is often based upon the work of a Royal Commission, and it was upon the work of a Royal Commission, of the Tudor type, that the Bill for the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries was based. More’s execution on June 2nd, 1535, having ended a somewhat embarrassing difficulty, the way was clear. A new visitation of the religious houses was set on foot. The visitors whose names are best known were Doctors Legh and Layton. They were young lawyers in holy orders, with all the arrogant characteristics of the new age, determined to do their work thoroughly and to the satisfaction of their master and patron, and deterred by no qualms of delicacy or reverence for persons or institutions. They started together from Lichfield on a tour through the North. Layton himself suggested the expedition, and also the companionship, not only because of the “faste and unfaynede servys that we here towardes yowe,” but also because “ther ys nother monasterie, selle, priorie, nor any other religiouse howse in the north but other doctor Lee [_sic_] or I have familier acqwayntance within x or xii mylles of hit, so that no knaverie can be hyde from us in that contre, nor ther we cannot be over fayssede nor suffer any maner injurie. We knowe and have experiens bothe of the fassion off the contre and the rudenes of the pepull, owre frendes and kynsfookes be dispersyde in those parties in evere place redy to assyste us if any stoborne or sturdy carle myght perchaunce be fownde a rebellous.”[121] Elaborate directions were given to the visitors, the extant draft of which bears evidence of careful revision, probably by the King himself as well as by Cromwell. It consists of no less than 86 articles of enquiry and 25 injunctions. The former are as searching and comprehensive as the latter are severe and intolerable, and, taken together, they enable us to form a good idea of the procedure.