ld it be endured when the justice of the
accusations against them had been ascertained. But the church was
unequal to the work of self-reformation. Parliament alone could decide
on the measures which the emergency made necessary; and preparatory to
legislation, the true circumstances and present character of the
religious bodies throughout the whole country were to be ascertained
accurately and completely.

[Sidenote: Issue of a commission for a general visitation.]

[Sidenote: Character of the commissioners.]

[Sidenote: First intention of the crown to reform and not to destroy.]

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,"[492] 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,[493] the
injunctions they were to carry with them to the various houses, the
private letters to the superiors, which were written by the king and by
Cromwell,[494] show plainly that the first object was to reform and not
to destroy; and it was only when reformation was found to be
conclusively hopeless, that the harder alternative was resolved upon.
The report itself is no longer extant. Bonner was directed by Queen Mary
to destroy all discoverable copies of it, and his work was fatally well
executed. We are able, however, to replace its contents to some exten