Lantern of the north

Soundtrack - Afterlives - The Promised Land

"In 1390 the cathedral was ruthlessly burned and almost destroyed by the son of King Robert II, the Earl of Buchan, who was better known as the Wolf of Badenoch. He had been excommunicated in 1388 and in revenge he and a gang of henchmen charged upon Elgin and burned the cathedral. The rebuilding work would have been slow as the country would have become impoverished by long wars with England. The cathedral was ablaze again in 1402 after being burned by one of the sons of the Lords of the Isles, and yet again it was rebuilt.
Around 1506 the central tower, said to have been 198 feet high, had to be rebuilt, and that work was not finished until 1538, when the cathedral was admitted to have been the finest in Scotland. On the beauty of the interior we can only surmise. Bishop Bur (1362-1397) in December 1390, writing to King Robert III of the burning of the cathedral by the Wolf of Badenoch, described it as being "the special ornament of the country, the glory of the Kingdom, the delight of strangers, the praise of visitors".

With all this dedication to rebuilding the cathedral and adding more beauty during the rebuilds, how did it come about that all this magnificence and splendour has departed, and that the cathedral, the palace of Spynie and other monastic buildings in Moray are in ruins. That is the painful story of the Reformation in Scotland of 1560, and of the following century and a quarter. When that storm swept the country, most of the clergy fled, abandoning their property. The revenues of the Roman Catholic Church were alienated and with no income to uphold the cathedral, it and other buildings of religion fell in to disrepair."