wooden
chair being made, and the stone inserted in the seat. Such was the
estimation in which he held the stone, that he placed it in the most
sacred place in England--close to the altar and shrine of St. Edward.
There are reasons for concluding that Edward had intended to return
the stone to Scotland, and had made arrangements to that effect in a
treaty; but the citizens of London, who were anxious to retain the
stone in England, remonstrated against its being restored to the legal
owners, and the king complied with their wishes. This famous "Stone of
Destiny," long sacred in Ireland, and on which the kings of Scotland
were crowned for more than a thousand years, now forms part of the
coronation chair of the kings and queens of England.

When the supreme kings of Ireland were inaugurated, in the times of
heathenism, on the hill of Tarah, the stone, which was enclosed in a
wooden chair, was supposed to emit a sound under the rightful heir to
the throne, but to be mute under a man seeking power under false
pretences. On Aidanus being elected by universal acclamation, and
solemnly seated in the same chair, he was crowned by St. Columba, who
with his right hand placed the diadem on the king's head, while in his
left he held a trumpet or wooden tube, to announce to the assembled
throng the completion of the joyful event. This tube was long
preserved with great care at Dunkeld. Some suppose that the fatality
long assigned to the stone was fully believed in by Kenneth, by whose
orders the following couplet was carved on the chair:--

"Where'er this marble's placed, there, sure as fate,
Shall be the Scottish monarch's regal seat."

Wintoun tells us that Fergus, the son of Ere,

"Braucht this stane wytht-in Scotland
Fyrst quhen he came and wane that land,
And fyrst it set in Ikkolmkil,
And Skune thare-eftir it was braucht tyle;
And there it wes syne mony day,
Qhyll Edward gert have it away."

Without endorsing the opinion that Scotland and Ireland have lost
their wonted power, or suffered decline through the "Prophetic or
Fatal Stone" being carried away, it is an indisputable fact that in
neither of these countries is there, strictly speaking, a "monarch's
regal seat." The "Enchanted Stone"--the "palladium of Scottish
liberty"--is certainly, as the English well know, one of the most
ancient and valuable relics in Westminster Abbey.

TRIALS BY ORDEAL.

CHAPTER L.

Trial