St. Margaret of Scotland, a queen worthy of everlasting remembrance, who died in the year 1093, gave to one of the churches in her husband's dominions a splendid crucifix, on which was a figure of the Redeemer in pure gold. The one historic crucifix of the country, however, is the famous Black Rood of Scotland, round which gathers much both of legend and of history, and from which the royal palace and abbey in Edinburgh received its name of Holy Rood. The story of this ancient cross is recounted at length in the "Rites of Durham," and is as follows. King David Bruce was hunting in a forest hard by Edinburgh one Holy Cross Day, or Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14th), and had become separated from his companions, when a wondrous hart, of great beauty and strength, suddenly appeared to him. The creature charged the king's horse, and so terrified it that it took to flight; but the hart followed "so fiercely and swiftly" that it bore down both the horse and its royal rider to the ground. Bruce, putting forth his hands to save himself, was about to seize the antlers of his assailant, when, from the head of the hart, "there most strangly slypped into the King's hands the said crosse most wonderously," and forthwith the animal vanished. On the following night Bruce was warned in his sleep to build an abbey at the spot where this miracle had happened. Accordingly, he sent to France and Flanders for workmen, built the abbey of the Holy Rood, which he gave to the canons regular of St. Augustine, and "placed the said Cross most sumptuously and richly in the said Abbey, ther to remayne in a most renowned monument." So it continued until "the said king" invaded England previous to the Battle of Neville's Cross; this sacred relic was then brought forth, and carried to the war. Again the king received a vision during his sleep, in which he was warned in no case to damage the patrimony of St. Cuthbert; but, in spite of this, he proceeded to lay waste and to destroy the domains of the great Abbey at Durham; and for this disobedience divine vengeance fell upon him. He himself was captured at the ensuing fight, many of the flower of his nobility fell on the field, his royal standard became a prize to the English, and the Holy Rood was taken! All the trophies of the victory were solemnly offered by the English as an act of thanksgiving at St. Cuthbert's shrine at Durham, and the Rood "was sett up most exactlie in the piller next St. Cuthbert's shrine in the south alley of the said Abbey." The writer of the "Rites" tells us in one place that "no man knew certenly what mettell or wood the said crosse was mayd of;" at a later point in his story he implies that it was of silver and was termed the "Black Rude of Scotland" from "being, as yt weare, smoked all over," doubtless from the tapers constantly burnt before it both in Edinburgh and in Durham. At the Reformation this valuable and historic cross was carried off with the other abbey