Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/330

310 the whole country were to be ascertained accurately and completely.

Accordingly, in the summer of 1535, directly after Sir Thomas More's execution, Cromwell, now 'vicegerent of the King in all his ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the realm,' issued a commission for a general visitation of the religious houses, the Universities, and other spiritual corporations. The persons appointed to conduct the inquiry were Doctors Legh, Leyton, and Ap Rice, ecclesiastical lawyers in holy orders, with various subordinates. Legh and Leyton, the two principal commissioners, were young, impetuous men, likely to execute their work rather thoroughly than delicately; but, to judge by the surviving evidence, they were as upright and plain-dealing as they were assuredly able and efficient. It is pretended by some writers that the inquiry was set on foot with a preconceived purpose of spoliation; that the duty of the visitors was rather to defame roundly than to report truly; and that the object of the commission was merely to justify an act of appropriation which had been already determined. The commission of Pope Innocent, with the previous inquiries, puts to silence so gratuitous a supposition; while it is certain that antecedent to the presentation of the report, an extensive measure of suppression was not so much as contemplated. The directions to the visitors, the injunctions which they were to carry with them to the various houses, the private letters to the