1552.]
NORTHUMBERLAND'S CONSPIRACY.
121
condition of silence. A sweep as complete cleared the parish churches throughout the country. There was one special commission for bells, vestments, and ornaments; two for plate and jewels; a fourth to search private houses for church property, and, should any such be found, to make a further profit by the fine of the offenders. NovemberA commission, again, was to examine into the rents of the Crown estates; another to sell chantry lands. The accounts of the disposition of all estates which had fallen to the Crown by confiscation or Act of Parliament since the suppression of the monasteries were to be produced and examined. The armorial bearings of families residing south of the Trent were to be investigated by the College of Heralds, and illegal quarterings to be paid for by fine or forfeit. Lastly, Northumberland himself, assisted by others on whose discretion he could rely, undertook to examine the accounts of the treasurer and receiver of the Court of Augmentations and the Court of Exchequer; of the collectors of firstfruits and of the officers of the Duchy of Lancaster; and, finally, in one frightful sweep, to call on every one who had received money in behalf of the Crown since the year 1532 to produce his books and submit them to an audit. Paymasters, purveyors, victuallers, engineers, architects, every one to whom money had been paid from the treasury for the army and navy, for the household, or for any other purpose, were included under the same schedule. If the account-books of twenty years of confusion, during the latter portion of which almost all public persons, from the council
