The reasons why the rising against the authority of Cromwell, known to posterity by the suggestive name of the Pilgrimage of Grace, was organized, and set afoot in the northern counties, are not far to seek. In the first place devotion to the Old Faith, and to the cause of Queen Katherine, was far stronger in the north than in the south of England. A comparison of the ‘comperta’ of the northern and southern monasteries, or of the details of the different visitations, will easily convince the reader of this discrepancy. In the south occur constant complaints by the monks that their superiors failed to observe the canons of religious asceticism; and on the other hand, whenever an abbot refused to acknowledge the Royal Supremacy, his subordinates were always sure to report him to head quarters, in the hope of gaining favour with the King or Cromwell[438]. The letters of Dr. Legh from the south of England contain frequent reports of ‘towardness’ among the inmates, and willingness to adopt the New Faith[439]. In the north one finds none of this. The reports concerning the monasteries there are of a very different sort: immorality and unnatural crimes are the principal charges against the inmates[440]. There is scarcely a record of apostasy; scarcely a case of mutual accusation among the monks. The abbots and their subordinates almost invariably supported each other, and their loyalty to the Old Faith and their hatred of those who tried to disestablish it, gave the Commissioners a far harder task in the north than in the south. There is also reason to think that Cromwell’s spy system operated less perfectly there, partly owing to this spirit of conservatism and love of the old usages permeating every sort and condition of life, and partly owing to the great spaces of wild, uninhabited land.