led to raise the foundations of
the nave a few feet above ground.[112] Forty years elapsed before Bishop
Leighton (1422-1440) completed the wall of the nave, founded the
northern transept, and reared the two western towers.[113] Bishop
Lindsay (1441-1459) paved and roofed the cathedral; it was glazed by
Bishop Spens (1459-1480). Bishop Elphinstone (1487-1514), who founded
King's College in 1500, and who was "the most distinguished of all who
ever filled the episcopal chair," ... and possessed "manners and
temperance in his own person, befitting the primitive ages of
Christianity,"[114] adorned the cathedral. He built the great central
tower and wooden spire, provided the great bells, and covered the roofs
of nave, aisles, and transept with lead.[115] This central tower was
four storey high, and square, and had two battlements and fourteen
bells; it was a noted landmark to mariners at sea.[116] Bishop Gavin
Dunbar (1519-1531) built the southern transept, added spires to
Leighton's towers, and constructed at his own "pains and expenses" the
flat ceiling of oak, which still remains with the heraldries of the
Pope, the Emperor, St. Margaret, the kings and princes of Christendom,
the bishops and the earls of Scotland. Bishop Elphinstone began to
rebuild the choir, but it never seems to have been finished. Alluding to
1560, Orme says, "The glorious structure of said cathedral church, being
near nine score years in building, did not remain twenty entire, when it
was almost ruined by a crew of sacrilegious church robbers."[117] The
ruins of the choir have been entirely removed; of the transepts only the
foundations now remain, the architecture being destroyed by the fall of
the central tower in 1688. The nave is nearly perfect, and is used as
the parish church. The west front, except the spires, is entirely built
with granite, and is regarded as one of the most impressive and imposing
structures in Scotland,[118] and as stately in the severe symmetry of
its simple design.[119] There is a remarkable entrance doorway, the
jambs being mere rounds and hollows, with a flat stone laid along at the
springing of the round arch. Above the doorway are seven lofty narrow
windows, crowned each with a round and cusped arch, and forming a
striking feature of the whole. The clerestory windows are narrow and
round arched, without any moulding, while the aisle windows are filled
with the simplest tracery. East of the cathedral was the bishop's
p