Ripon was selected as my starting-place, a pretty town on the banks of the Yore, and a cathedral dominating over it like a guardian genius. It possesses that quiet air of respectability which alone is the property of cathedral towns in England. Here it was that Norton and Markenfield displayed at the market cross the banner of the five wounds of our Lord at the memorable rising of the north in 1569. Here, too, it was in former years that the spurrier exercised his craft, and hence the ancient proverb originated: As true steel as Ripon rowels.