which preceded
its dissolution. The outward beautiful ruin was but the symbol and
consequence of a moral ruin not so beautiful. "The Abbot of Fountains,"
we read in a joint letter of Legh and Leyton, had "greatly dilapidated
his house, [and] wasted the woods, notoriously keeping six women. [He
is] defamed here," they say, "_a toto populo_, one day denying these
articles, with many more, the next day confessing the same, thus
manifestly incurring perjury." Six days before the visitors' access to
his monastery "he committed theft and sacrilege, confessing the same. At
midnight he caused his chaplain to seize the sexton's keys, and took out
a jewel, a cross of gold with stones. One Warren, a goldsmith in the
Chepe, was with him in his chamber at that hour, and there they stole
out a great emerald, with a ruby. The said Warren made the abbot believe
the ruby to be but a garnet, so that for this he paid nothing. For the
emerald he paid but twenty pounds. He sold him also the plate without
weight or ounces; how much the abbot was deceived therein he cannot
tell, for he is a very fool and miserable idiot."[507]

[Sidenote: The visitors instructed to make inventories of the property,
and to bring away the superfluous plate.]

[Sidenote: False returns made by the abbots.]

Under an impression that frauds of this description were becoming
frequent, the government had instructed the commissioners to take
inventories of the plate and jewels; and where they saw occasion for
suspicion, to bring away whatever seemed superfluous, after leaving a
supply sufficient for the services of the house and chapel. The
misdemeanour of the Abbot of Fountains was not the only justification of
these directions. Sometimes the plate was secreted. The Prior of Christ
Church, Canterbury, was accused of having sent in a false return,[508]
keeping back gold and precious stones valued at a thousand pounds.
Information was given by some of the brethren, who professed to fear
that the prior would poison them in revenge.

[Sidenote: Scene at Norton Abbey in Cheshire.]

Occasionally the monks ventured on rougher methods to defend themselves.
Here is a small spark of English life while the investigation was in
progress, lighted by a stray letter from an English gentleman of
Cheshire. The lord chancellor was informed by Sir Piers Dutton, justice
of the peace, that the visitors had been at Norton Abbey. They had
concluded their inspection, had packed up such