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YORK. 269
CHAPTER
XIX.
There can be little doubt that the prominent part
taken by many of the heads of religious houses, and
by the monks and clergy in the Pilgrimage of Grace
did much to hasten the completion of Cromwell's
scheme for their general suppression. In the same
month which witnessed the execution of Aske, we
find Dr. Layton writing to the great minister soliciting
the appointment of himself and Dr. Legh as visitors
of the great monasteries which were left untouched
by the dissolution of 1536. The letter is dexterously
enough worded. He flatters Cromwell by an expression
of his conviction that " the kynge's hyghnes
hath put his onely truste in him for the reformacion
of his clergie," and he goes on to vaunt the fitness
of Dr. Legh and himself for the work which was
required :—there was not a monastery, cell, priory,
or any other religious house in the north, witli which
they were unacquainted. They knew the country
well, and that characteristic of its inhabitants which
he designates as "the rudenes of the pepuU ; " in
other words, the sturdy independence which, after the
lapse of three centuries, still honourably distinguishes
the people of the north, and of Yorkshire in particular.
He tells him, moreover, that they had
friends and kinsfolk in different parts of the country