Richard Layton
Richard Layton or Leighton (1500?–1544) was an English churchman, jurist and diplomat, dean of York and a principal agent of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell in the Dissolution of the Monasteries.On 4 July 1531 he seems to have been living at East Farnham in Hampshire, but on 1 September 1533 became dean of the collegiate church of Chester-le-Street, County Durham.Layton wrote to Cromwell, 'We have sett Dunce [Duns Scotus] in Bocardo and have utterly banished hym Oxforde for ever, with all his blinde glosses, and is nowe made a common servant to evere man, faste nailede up upon postes in all common howses of easement: id quod oculis meis vidi'('I saw it with my own eyes.').On 26 September 1535 he was at Waverley in Sussex, and proceeded to Chichester, Arundel, Lewes, and Battle, and entering Kent, reached Allingborne on 1 October.The reports of Layton and his companions, submitted with other similar material to the parliament which met 4 February 1536, sealed the fate of the smaller houses.In May 1536 Layton took part in the trial of Anne Boleyn; through the autumn he was busy assisting in the repression of the northern rebels; and when the rising was over he was a commissioner to hear confessions.The King appropriated their income, disposed of their assets, and provided for their former members and functions through a set of administrative and legal processes known as The Dissolution of the Monasteries.In September 1539 he made an unannounced visit to Glastonbury Abbey, accompanied by two other commissioned officers, Richard Pollard and Thomas Moyle.Some time in 1543 he was employed in unravelling the conspiracy against Thomas Cranmer, and in the same year was appointed to succeed William Paget as English ambassador at Paris.