The amount of damage done in different parts of the country would depend on circumstances, on the disposition of the magistrates, and especially on the conduct of the military. It is certain that the havoc of Downings' iconoclasm is not a specimen of what generally took place. The state of numerous churches throughout the kingdom shews that Puritanism in many places touched them lightly, if at all. We know more about the cathedrals. These suffered severely. Peterborough, perhaps, was treated worse than any, the choir being stripped of its carved fittings and coloured glass, the cloisters being completely pulled down.[395] Part of the nave at Carlisle was destroyed, in order that guard houses and batteries might be constructed. The chapter house of Hereford was ruined, and 170 crosses torn up.[396] At Chichester, ornaments, monuments, and windows were destroyed. Sawpits were dug in the nave of Rochester. The lady chapel of Ely was cruelly shattered. Norwich Cathedral sustained much injury; and so did Lichfield, which the cavaliers turned into a citadel. Monuments were smashed at Gloucester and Lincoln. But, in Winchester, though Waynflete's chantry was defaced, the cathedral is said to have suffered less than it otherwise would have done, from the circumstance of the captain of the troop stationed there being an old Wykehamist. Though stalls were pulled down at Worcester, numerous monuments and effigies still remain within that edifice. Only painted windows were taken down at Exeter and Oxford; some of the latter being preserved after their removal. Notwithstanding what is reported in the _Mercurius Rusticus_, the ornaments of Westminster Abbey, which at the beginning of the conflict fell into Puritan hands, so far escaped violence, that it is said "a history of ecclesiastical sculpture, from the reign of Henry III. to the present day, might be fairly illustrated from the stores of that Church alone."[397] Other noble cathedrals were but slightly damaged. Salisbury was free from "material profanation."[398] There is no mention of harm done at Bristol, Durham, Chester, and York. Throughout England, tradition is constant in her story, that the violation of churches was the work of soldiers.