Scone

Scone (pronounced Scoon), in Perthshire, on the Tay's left bank, 2 miles N. of Perth, was the capital of Pictavia as early as 710, and the coronation place of the Scottish kings from 1153 till 1488, as afterwards in 1651 of Charles II. (see SCOTLAND, p. 239). Fordun vividly describes the semi-Celtic coronation of Alexander III. (1249), who was the last to be seated on the 'Stone of Destiny,' carried off in 1296 by Edward I. An Augustinian abbey, founded by Alexander I. in 1115, was totally demolished by a rabble in 1559; and the subsequent Palace of the Viscounts Stormont, in which the Old Pretender lived for three weeks in 1716, and which was also visited by Prince Charles Edward, has given place to a modern castellated mansion, the seat of their descendant, the Earl of Mansfield. Queen Victoria stayed here in 1842. See Urquhart's History of Scone (1884).