near Upsala, were inaugurated the Kings of Sweden till the time of Gustavus Vasa. Such a chair and stone, for the Dukes of Carinthia, is still to be seen at Zollfell. Seven stone seats for the Emperor and his Electors mark the spot where the Lahn joins the Rhine at Lahnstein. On such a mound the King of Hungary appears, sword in hand, at Presburg or Pesth. On such stones decrees were issued in the Republican states of Torcello, Venice, and Verona. On a stone like these, nearer home, was placed the Lord of the Isles. The stones on which the kings of Ireland were crowned, were, even down to Elizabeth's time, believed to be the inviolable pledges of Irish independence. One such remains near Derry, marked with the two cavities in which the feet of the King of Ulster were placed; another in Monaghan, called the MacMahon Stone, where the impression of the foot remained till 1809. On the King's Stone, as we have seen, beside the Thames, were crowned seven of the Anglo-Saxon kings. And in Westminster itself, by a usage doubtless dating back from a very early period, the Kings, before they passed from the Palace to the Abbey, were lifted to a marble seat, twelve feet long and three feet broad, placed at the upper end of Westminster Hall, and called, from this peculiar dignity, "The King's Bench."

Still there was yet wanting something of this mysterious natural charm in the Abbey itself, and this it was which Edward I. provided. In the capital of the Scottish kingdom was a venerablę

fragment of rock, to which, at least as early as the fourteenth century, the following legend was attached:

The stony pillow on which Jacob slept at Bethel was by his countrymen transported to Egypt. Thither came Gathelus, son of Cecrops, king of Athens, and married Scota, daughter of Pharaoh. He and his Egyptian wife, alarmed at the fame of Moses, fled with the stone to Sicily or to Spain. From Brigantia, in Spain, it was carried off by Simon Brech, the favourite son of Milo the Scot, to Ireland. It was thrown on the seashore as an anchor; or (for the legend varied at this point) an anchor which was cast out, in consequence of a rising storm, pulled up the stone from the bottom of the sea. On the sacred hill of Tara it became "Lia Fail," the "Stone of Destiny." On it the kings of Ireland were placed. If the chief was a true successor, the stone was silent; if a pretender, it groaned aloud as with thunder. At this point, where the legend begins to pass into history, the voice of national discord begins to make itself heard. The Irish antiquarians maintain that the true stone long remained on the Hill of Tara. One of the green mounds within that venerable precinct is called the "Coronation Chair;" and a rude. pillar, now serving as a monument over the graves of the rebels of 1798, is by some thought to be the original "Lia Fail." But the stream of Scottish tradition carries us on. Fergus, the founder of the Scottish monarchy, bears the sacred stone across the sea from Ireland to Dunstaffnage. In the

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vaults of Dunstaffnage Castle a hole is still shown, where it is said to have been laid. With the migration of the Scots eastward, the stone was moved by Kenneth II. (A.D. 840), and planted on a raised plot of ground at Scone, "because that the last battle with the Picts was there fought."

Whatever may have been the previous wanderings of the relic, at Scone it assumes an unquestionable historical position. It was there encased in a chair of wood, and stood by a cross on the east of the monastic cemetery, on or beside the Mount of Belief," which still exists. In it, or upon it, the Kings of Scotland were placed by the Earls of Fife. From it Scone became the "Sedes principalis" of Scotland, and the kingdom of Scotland the kingdom of Scone; and hence for many generations Perth, and not Edinburgh, was regarded as the capital city of Scotland.

Wherever else it may have strayed, there need be no question, at least, of its Scottish origin. Its geological formation is that of the sandstone of the western coasts of Scotland. It has the appearance -thus far agreeing with the tradition of Dunstaffnage of having once formed part of a building. But of all explanations concerning it, the most probable is that which identifies it with the stony pillow on which Columba rested, and on which his dying head was laid in his Abbey of Iona; and if so, it belongs to the minister of the first authentic Western consecration of a Christian prince-that of the Scottish chief Aidan.

On this precious relic Edward fixed his hold.

He had already hung up before the Confessor's shrine the golden coronet of the last Prince of Wales. It was a still further glory to deposit there the very seat of the kingdom of Scotland. On it he himself was crowned King of the Scots. From the Pope he procured a bull to rase to the ground the rebellious Abbey of Scone, which had once possessed it; and his design was only prevented, as Scotland itself was saved, by his sudden death at Brough-on-the-Sands. Westminster was to be an English Scone. It was his latest care for the Abbey. In that last year of Edward's reign, the venerable chair, which still encloses it, was made for it by the orders of its captor; the fragments of the world-old Celtic races was embedded in the new Plantagenet oak. The King had originally intended the seat to have been of bronze, and the workman, Adam, had actually begun it. But it was ultimately constructed of wood, and decorated by Walter the painter, who at the same time was employed on the Painted Chamber, and probably on the Chapter House.

The elation of the English king may be mea: sured by the anguish of the Scots. Now that this foundation of their monarchy was gone, they laboured with redoubled energy to procure, what they had never had before, a full religious consecration of their Kings. This was granted to Robert the Bruce, by the Pope, a short time before his death; and his son David, to make up for the loss of the stone, was the first crowned and anointed King of Scotland. But they still cherished the

hope of recovering it. A solemn article in the Treaty of Northampton, which closed the long war between the two countries, required the restoration of the lost relics to Scotland. Accordingly Edward III., then residing at Bardesly, directed his writ, under the Privy Seal, to the Abbot and Convent of Westminster, commanding them to give the stone for this purpose to the sheriffs of London, who would receive the same from them by indenture, and cause it to be carried to the Queen-mother. All the other articles of the treaty were fulfilled. Even the "Black Rood," the sacred cross of Holy Rood, which Edward I. had carried off with the other relics, was restored. But "the stone of Scone, on which the kings of Scotland used at Scone to be placed on their inauguration, the people of London would by no means whatever allow to depart from themselves." More than thirty years after, David II. being then old and without male issue, negotiations were begun with Edward III.

that one of his sons should succeed to the Scottish crown; and that in this event, the Royal stone should be delivered out of England, and he should, after his English coronation, be crowned upon it at Scone. But these arrangements were never completed. In the Abbey, in spite of treaties and negotiations, it remained, and still remains. The affection which now clings to it had already sprung up, and forbade all thought of removing it.

A. P. Stanley.