Display board - entrance to second alcove
The start of the 16th century saw the beginnings of a bitter power struggle between the Earls of Sutherland and the Gordon Earls of Huntly. In 1500 the marriage of Adam Gordon, 2nd Earl of Huntly to Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland, ensured that the Gordons gained control of the Earldom of Sutherland.
Yet the victory of the Gordons did little to promote peace in the region: The Earls of Caithness, the Murrays of Dornoch and the Mackays of Strathnaver, all took advantage of the tumultuous times to pursue personal vendettas. This perpetual state of anarchy had disastrous consequences for Dornoch in 1570. Three years earlier Mackay of Strathnaver and Lord Duffus had, in pursuit of their feud with the Murrays, laid waste the Barony of Skibo and burned the town of Dornoch.
This led to a series of tit-for-tat skirmishes until, in 1570, the town was devastated by fire when it was attacked for a second time. The Cathedral (apart from the tower where the Murrays made their final, desperate last stand against the attackers) was destroyed, as were many private houses in the town. It was only in the next century that serious attempts to repair the Cathedral were made, and for almost fifty years the Church of St Gilbert lay in ruins.
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