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realised, since the late Duke of Argyll gifted the ruined cathedral to the Church of Scotland, which hopes to do for it what has already been done for Dunblane. 13. DIOCESE OF ORKNEY Christianity reached the Orkneys through the labours of the Columban clergy, and there are many traces in the islands that speak of their work. Under the rule of the Norse, in the ninth and tenth centuries any Christian influence that survived from the labours of such early pioneers of the Christian faith must have died out. The first actual Bishop of Orkney was William the Old, who was consecrated in 1102, held the bishopric for sixty-six years, and died in 1168. His see was first at Birsay, and was removed to Kirkwall on the erection of the cathedral in 1137-1152. The Bishop of Orkney was one of the suffragans of the metropolitan see at Throndhjeim, erected in 1154. In 1472 the see of Orkney was placed under the metropolitan Bishop of St. Andrews. The story of the foundation at Kirkwall is as follows. The possession of the Orkneys was divided between two relatives, and about the beginning of the twelfth century two cousins, Hacon and Magnus, shared the government. In 1115 Magnus was treacherously slain at Egilsay by Hacon, who thus obtained the whole earldom. Rognvald, son of Magnus' sister, became a claimant for Magnus' share of the earldom, and vowed that if he succeeded he would erect a "stone minster" in honour of his predecessor St. Magnus, who had been canonised. Rognvald was successful, and fulfilled his vow by founding at Kirkwall a cathedral dedicated to St. Magnus. The building was designed and superintended by the Norwegian Kol, the father of Rognvald; the relics of St. Magnus were brought from Christ's Kirk in Birsay, to be deposited in the cathedral as soon as it was prepared to receive them, and until the work was finished they rested in the Church of St. Olaf, an older edifice which then existed in Kirkwall.[205] "The Cathedral of St. Magnus was thus designed and erected by a Norwegian earl, while the bishopric was under the authority of the Norwegian Metropolitan of Throndhjeim. It is thus practically a Norwegian edifice, and is by far the grandest monument of the rule of the Norsemen in Orkney. In these circumstances, it is not to be expected that the architecture should in every detail follow the contemporary styles which prevailed in Britain, but it is astonishing to find how closely the earlier parts correspo
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