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 History of Leicester seems to have substituted the word "land" for "lead," and he has thereby misled some later writers.

The church ornaments were sold with the "household stuff." Mr. Francis Cave, the Commissioner, reported to Lord Cromwell, in 1539, that the church was then undefaced, "and in the church," he said, "be many things to be made sale of, for the which it may please your lordship to let me know your pleasure, as well for the further sale to be made, as for the defacing of the church and other superfluous buildings which be about the monastery."

This letter was soon followed by the complete destruction of the Abbey church; that is to say, it was bereft of everything saleable, and abandoned to decay. 97