‘Very right and proper,’ you will probably think. ‘The money was going to be put to a better use.’ Yes, but these suppressions might point out to some unscrupulous adviser of the King a means whereby large supplies of money could easily be obtained; and if the King happened to be in need of money and was not very scrupulous as to the manner in which that money were obtained, it might become a very dangerous precedent. [Illustration: _Photo by_] The Gateway of Kirkham Priory. [_H.F. Farr_ ] This is just what it did become. King Henry VIII. was not a particularly scrupulous man in more ways than one, and his chief adviser after Cardinal Wolsey’s death was particularly unscrupulous. Acting on the advice of Thomas Cromwell, Parliament, at the close of 1535, ordered a ‘Visitation’ of the monasteries throughout the country, and the presentation of a report based on the results of this. Accordingly, two ‘Visitors’ were appointed, who in the short space of six weeks visited, or were said to have visited, eighty-eight monasteries in the dioceses of Coventry, Lichfield and York. [Illustration: _Photo by_] [_C.W. Mason_ Ruins of the East End of the Church of Kirkham Priory. ] The report presented to Parliament was named THE BLACK BOOK, and its nature was such that in February, 1536, Parliament ordered the suppression of all monasteries that had an annual income of less than £200. As a result 376 religious houses were suppressed, their inmates were transferred to the larger houses or left to shift for themselves, and their lands, to the annual value of £32,000, were forfeited to the King. All the monasteries and nunneries in the East Riding thus came to an end except those at Kirkham, Meaux, Watton and Bridlington, whose annual incomes amounted to £269, £299, £360 and £547 respectively. * * * * * In most parts of the country this suppression of the smaller monasteries caused no great stir. Undoubtedly some of them needed suppression. Undoubtedly, too, the report which got about, that the confiscation of the wealth of the religious houses would provide so much money for the government that there would thenceforth be no taxes for the common folk to pay, tended to prevent an outcry from being raised by the people. But in two counties there were rebellions. The first, in Lincolnshire, proved of little account; but the second, which had its origin in Yorkshire, was a formidable rising to which was given the name of _The Pilgrimage of Grace_.