The visitation began in August, 1535, and ended in February, 1536. During these six months, four or five men, often travelling together, undertook to examine one hundred and fifty-five houses scattered all over England. "To judge by the proportion in Yorkshire," says Mr. Gairdner, "the visitors examined only about four out of ten."[253] So far as can be ascertained, the evidence upon which the reports were based was generally of the flimsiest kind; either the scandal of some discontented monk or nun, or the tattle of servants. There was a striking instance of this at a nunnery in Chicksand, where Layton accused two nuns of incontinence, although "the two prioresses would not confess this, neither the parties, nor any of the nuns, but one old beldame."[254]
When nothing could be elicited, the accused were deemed in a conspiracy. At Newark the house seemed well ordered, and nothing questionable appeared on the surface, therefore Layton charged the monks with being "confederyde," but he added that he would object various horrible crimes against them, "which I have learnt from others. What I shall find I cannot tell."[255]
Where silence was taken as confession, the nuns especially fared ill. Very generally they were too frightened, or too disgusted, to answer. Even if such evidence were uncontradicted, no great weight could attach to it, but it happens that there is much on the other side. Not to speak of the episcopal visitations, which were carried on as part of the discipline of the Church, Henry's own government subsequently appointed boards of commissioners composed of country gentlemen, and these boards, which made examinations at leisure in five counties, formed conclusions generally favourable to the ecclesiastics. Two examples will suffice to show the discrepancy between the views of the men whom Cromwell did, and did not control. At Geradon in Leicestershire, Cromwell's board reported a convent of White Cistercians, which contained five monks addicted to sodomy with ten boys.[256] The second board described the same corporation as "of good conversation, and God's service well maintained."[257]
At Grace Dieu two nuns were charged with incontinence.[258] The country gentlemen found there only fifteen White Nuns of Saint Austin, "of good and virtuous conversation and living."[259]