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.
In July 1535, after the execution of More, Layton travelled to the university of Oxford with the Welshman John ap Rice to examine that institution.
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.').
Beginning in January, government-appointed commissioners collected vital information about the financial state of nearly all ecclesiastical institutions in the realm.
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.
On 24 March 1537 he and Starkey received a summons from the king to confer with the bishops on the morrow (Palm Sunday) on theological points.
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.