r the bishop's throne has
disappeared.[227] The tower contains four bells, three of which were
given by Bishop Maxwell (1526-1540). The cathedral does not appear to
have suffered during the Reformation period, but an attempt made by the
Earl of Caithness to destroy it in 1606, during the rebellion of Earl
Patrick Stewart and his son, was prevented by the intervention of Bishop
Law (sacred be his memory!).

The bishop's palace was founded about the beginning of the thirteenth
century. Twenty bishops held the see in succession. The diocese
contained the archdeaconries of Orkney, with thirty-five parishes, and
of Tingwall (Shetland) with thirteen. The church suffered from vandalism
in 1701 and 1855, and the east end is used as the parish church. May the
northern minster soon be restored and made worthy of its glorious past.
Lord Tennyson's son's diary contains the following entry on the
Cathedral of St. Magnus: "Gladstone and my father admired the noble
simplicity of the church, and its massive stone pillars, but we all
shuddered at the liberal whitewash and the high pews."[228]

A catalogue of the Bishops of Orkney, by Professor Munch of Christiania,
will be found in the _Bannatyne Miscellany_.[229]

CHAPTER IV

SCOTTISH COLLEGIATE CHURCHES

The creation of collegiate churches was a practical endeavour toward
ecclesiastical reform in the fifteenth century, when the foundation of
monastic establishments ceased. They had no parishes attached to them,
and were regulated very much as the cathedrals. They arose with the
purpose of counteracting the evils incidental to the monastic system,
and were formed by grouping the clergy of neighbouring parishes into a
college, or by consolidating independent chaplainries. They were called
praepositurae, were presided over by a dean or provost, and the
prebendaries were generally the clergy holding adjacent cures. In
Scotland, during more recent times, the term "collegiate" was applied to
a church where two ministers (as at St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh) served
the cure as colleagues, but in the fifteenth century the term had a
different and wider significance. Collegiate churches were then an
expression of the zeal and munificence that were displayed in the
enlargement and decoration of buildings, when all classes vied with each
other in the endowment of chaplainries for the maintenance of daily
stated service, always including prayers and singing of masses for the
souls of th