SCONE (pronounced Scoon), a parish in Perthshire, lying on the left bank of the Tay, about 2 m. from Perth. It is famous as the seat of one of the most venerable of Scot tish abbeys. Scone is first mentioned in the beginning of the 10th c., when a council was held there in the 6th year of the reign of kingConstantine, at which time it is styled by the chronicle which records the fact, regalitt civitas, the royal city. A monastery was built at Scone probably about the same period, and there was located the famous stone on which the kings of the Scots were inaugurated, and which was carried by Edward I. of England to Westminster abbey. In place of the ancient monastery, an abbey of can ens regular was founded by Alexander I. in 1115, and there the sovereigns Continued to be inaugurated and crowned. Alexander III., the last of the ancient race of kings, and Robert Bruce, the founder of the new dynasty, were crowned at ~cone; but after the accession of the house of Stuart, the coronation sometimes took place in other churches. In the summer of 1530, when Perth was held by the lords of the congregation, a disor derly multitude of their adherents assaulted the monastery of Scone, set it on fire, and left it a blackened ruin. The last coronation which was celebrated at Scone was, that of
Charles H. on Jan. 1. 1651. The abbey church had never been restored, and the solem nity took place in the parish kirk, the crown being placed on the king's he:id by the mar quis of Argyle. In Jan., 1716, the Jacobite leaders endeavored to encourage their fol lowers by fixing a day for the coronation of the chevalier at Scone, but the designwas abandoned. lu the reign of James VI. the abbey of Scone was erected into a temporal lordship in favor of sir David Murray, afterward created viscount of Stormont. The great chief-justice, the earl of Mansfield, a younger son of the fifth viscount Stormont, was born at Scone; and the Scottish peerage is now merged in the British earldom. The viscounts of Stormont had a residence near the site of the abbey, and hence known as the palace of Scone. The present palace was erected on the same site in the beginning of this century.