This is Scone Palace, the magnificent mansion of the Earls of Mansfield, standing almost on the site of the ancient Abbey and royal residence of Scone. Modern Scone and all its surroundings are stately and spacious, but the relics of its early grandeur have disappeared from the landscape, and almost the only memorials of the days when it was the meeting-place of parliaments and councils, the crowning-place of kings, "the Windsor of Scotland," are the mound of the "Motehill," the sycamore tree planted by Queen Mary, and the cross which marks the place where stood the old "City of Scone." In its neighbourhood was fought the last battle that decided the supremacy of the Scots over the Picts and the amalgamation of the two nations in one. On the Motehill, Kenneth Macalpine proclaimed the "Macalpine Laws." Hither, according to tradition, the "Stone of Destiny" was brought, more than a thousand years ago, from the old capital of the Dalriadic Scots in the west--from Dunstaffnage or Beregonium--and the Sovereigns of Scotland continued to be crowned on it until it was carried off to England, as the trophy of conquest, by Edward I. It forms part of the Coronation Chair at Westminster; and patriotic Scots declare that the prophecy bound up in the fateful stone is still being fulfilled, and that where it is, the Sovereigns of a Scottish house rule the land. Though the Coronation Stone was taken away, kings continued to be crowned here. Robert the Bruce was enthroned, and received the homage of his vassals, at Scone; and--to make a wide leap in history--Charles II. was crowned King of Scotland at the spot where his ancestors had been anointed and installed, before he set out on the unlucky expedition which ended at Worcester. Similar preparations were made for the coronation of the Old Pretender; but on the very eve of the event dissensions among his followers, and the approach of Argyll's army, caused him to take flight back to the Continent, leaving his adherents to their fate--an inglorious end to "an auld sang!" [Illustration: PERTH, FROM THE WEST.]