Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 6

SCONE
King of Spain, who did not live till more than a
thousand years after Pharaoh's time, and all the later
chroniclers agree that the stone was finally transferred
to Seone by Kenneth Mac Alpin, when he united the
Picts and Scots under one sovereignty. Such is the
rough tradition, but Dr Skene has shown that for its
later more polished forms, and for the identification of
the mystic stone with that at Scone, we are indebted to
Baldred Bisset, who was one of the commissioners sent to
Rome to plead the cause of Scottish independence before
the Pope, and who was desirous of thus strengthening
his cause. That the stone was looked on as mystical,
and held in high reverence, is undoubted, though the
reason cannot now be definitely ascertained. Dr Joseph
Robertson supposed that it might have been brought
from Iona, and was possibly the stone used by Columba
as a pillow, but the block is of no rock found in that
island, and is indeed a mass of dull reddish or purplish
sandstone, with a few imbedded pebbles, and having as
much resemblance to thesandstones of theneighbourhood
as to any other deposits. Dr Skene thinks that in all
probability it was a stone used by St Boniface — an Irish
missionary who was concerned in the conversion of
Naitan and his people to the Roman method of cal-
culating Easter — as an altar, and hence the veneration ;
and he points out that a stone on which the kings of
Munster were seated when crowned, was believed to be
the stone altar used by St Patrick in his service after
the conversion of the king of Cashel. There seems to
be a difference between both the Scone and Munster
stones, and those used in the common Celtic custom of
inaugurating kings while they stood on some rock or
large stone, for both of the former slabs were movable
and were kept in churches. After the kingdom of
Scone passed into the kingdom of Alban in a.d. 900,
Scone still remained the capital, for in 906, when the
Mote Hill was the scene of a solemn assembly where
King Constantin and Cellach, Bishop of St Andrews,
resolved on a union of the Pictish and Scottish Churches,
it is spoken of as rcgalis civitas, and from this time on-
wards the same hill was frequently the meeting place
of rough parliaments. In 1054 a battle was fought in
the neighbourhood between the forces of Siward, Earl
of Northumbria, and Macbeth. Siward was the uncle
of Malcolm Ceannmor, and, anxious to place his nephew
on his rightful throne, he ' went with a large army into
Scotland, both with a naval force and a land force, and
fought against the Scots, of whom he made great
slaughter, and put them to flight, and the king escaped.'
The struggle was, however, so keen, and so many of
Siward's men were killed, that he had to retire, and
Macbeth's rule over Scotia was maintained for other
three years. From the reference to a naval force, Siward
would seem to have brought ships, which operated along
theTay.
After the kingdom of Alban became the kingdom of
Scotia, and still later, when Celtic finally passed into
feudal Scotland, neither the importance of the place
nor of its mystic stone diminished. 'No king,' says
Fordun, ' was ever wont to reign in Scotland unless
he had sat upon this stone at Scone ; ' and this may
possibly have been so, though there is no contem-
porary evidence of the fact prior to the 12th century,
when John of Hexham states that in 1153 * Malcolm
IV. was crowned here, and from this time onwards
Scone was the regular place of coronation till the begin-
ing of the reign of James IV. Subsequent to that time
the only king who was crowned at Scone was Charles II.
in 1651. Of most of the ceremonies no particulars have
been recorded, but of that of Alexander III. a graphic
account has been given by Fordun, and of that of
Charles a full account is given in a thin quarto printed
at Aberdeen in 1651, and reprinted by Dr Gordon in
his Monasticon (London, 1875). The last king crowned
seated on the mystic stone was Alexander ill., as the
relic was in 1296 carried off to London by Edward I.,
* Dr Hill Burton's statement that Malcolm III. was crowned at
Scone has been traversed by Dr Skene. See Celtic Scotland, vol.
1., p. 431.
SCONE
who, much given to relic worship, seems to have held
it in as high esteem as the Scots themselves, and
evidently regarded it as the palladium of Scotland.
His first intention was to make for it a magnificent
shrine, which was to serve as a coronation chair for the
English kings, but this idea was abandoned in favour of
that of a chair of bronze, and then of one of wood, which
has been used as a coronation chair for all the English
and British sovereigns since, and underneath the seat of
which the stone still remains. Some doubt was at one
time expressed as to whether this stone at Westminster is
that formerly at Scone, because in the treaty of North-
ampton in 1328, it was stipulated that the relic should
be given back. Complaint is, however, afterwards made
that the stipulation had not been fulfilled, and there
cannot be the slightest question as to the identity. The
Abbey of Scone stood to the W of Old Scone on the
site of the present palace. It was founded by Alexander
I. in 1114 for Augustinian monks, whom he brought
from the priory of St Oswald at Nastlay, near Pontefract
in Yorkshire. The new foundation was dedicated by
Alexander and his wife Sibylla to the Virgin, St
Michael, St John, St Lawrence, and St Augustine ; and
it seems to have replaced an older church dating from
the time of St Boniface, and dedicated to the Holy
Trinity. During the Wars of Independence the monks
of Scone were, like so many of the Scottish churchmen,
thoroughly opposed to the English claims, and so we
find their home destroyed by the English army in 1298,
and Edward petitioning the Pope to take the Abbey
out of the midst of a hostile population, while, later,
Abbot Thomas was one of those who took part in the
coronation of Robert Bruce and suffered in consequence,
being sent to England as a prisoner. The Abbey pos-
sessed a precious relic in the head of St Fergus (circa
700), for which James IV. provided a silver case. From
traces which have been observed of its foundations, the
abbey wall is supposed to have enclosed an area of
12 acres. About 100 yards due E from the SE corner
of the present palace is an old burying ground, and here
in 1841 part of the abbey buildings were iaid bare.
The church is supposed to have stood here. About
70 yards N of this is the Mote Hill— 'the hill of
belief ' of the chroniclers and the Mons Placiti of the
Begiam Majestatcm — with a flat area, on the top, of
100 by 60 yards. The Abbey buildings and the old
palace, properly the house of the abbots, were destroyed
by a mob from Perth in 1559. ' Some of the poore in
houp of spoyle and sum af Dundie, to considder what
was done passed up to the same Abbay of Scone ;.
whairat the Bischopis servandis offended, began to
threattene and speak proudlie ; and as it was constant-
lie affermed one of the Bischopis sonis stogged throuch
with a rapper one of Dundie, for because he was looking
in at the girnell door. This brute noysed abrode, the
town of Dundie was more enraged than befoir, who,
putting thame selffis in armour, send word to the in-
habitants of Sanct Johnestoun, " That onles they
should support thame to avenge that injurie that thai
should never after that day concur with thame in any
actioun." The multitud easelie inflambed, gave the
alarme, and so was that Abbay and Palace appointit to
saccage ; in doing whairof they took no lang delibera-
tion, hot committed the hole to the mereiment of
fyre ; wharat no small nomber of us war offendit, that
patientlie we culd nocht speak till any that war of
Dundie or Sanct Johnestoun.' So complete was the
destruction, that hardly any ruins even remained. The
building of a new palace was begun by the first lay com-
mendator, the Earl of Gowrie, and on his forfeiture the
property was bestowed by King James VI. on David
Murray of the house of Tullibardine, who became Baron
Scone in 1605, and Viscount Stormont in 1621. He
finished the palace and erected the old gateway 200
yards to the NE of the present mansion. The old
abbey church having fallen, he also, in 1624, erected a
parish church on the top of the Mote Hill. Of this
only an aisle now remains, containing a magnificent
marble statue of the first Viscount, and other family
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