And here our readers may like to see the lithological description which has been given of this mysterious object. It is a sandy granular stone, a sort of debris of sienite, chiefly quartz, with felspar, light and reddish-coloured, and also light and dark mica, with some dark green mineral, probably hornblende, intermixed; some fragments of a reddish-grey clay-slate are likewise visible in this strange conglomerate, and there is also a dark brownish-red coloured flinty pebble of great hardness. The stone is of an oblong form, but irregular, measuring twenty-six inches in length, nearly seventeen in breadth, and ten inches and a half in thickness. It is curious that the substances composing it accord (as remarked by Mr. Brayley) with the sienite of Pliny, which forms the so-called Pompey's Pillar at Alexandria. The Latin rhyme in which the old prophecy was perpetuated— Ni fallat fatum Scori quocunque locatum is said to have been engraved by order of Kenneth, but there is no trace of an inscription upon the stone. If the distich really was engraved at that early time in the history of the coronationstone, it was probably on a metal plate (of which there is some trace upon the stone), or on the wooden chair in which that king is recorded to have had the stone inclosed. The story of its removal to Westminster, in A.D. 1296, by King Edward I., is too well known to need repetition. "The people of Scotland," says Rapin, "had all along placed in that stone a kind of fatality. They fancied that only whilst it remained in their country the state would be unshaken; and for this reason Edward carried it away to create in the Scots a belief that the time of the dissolution of their monarchy was come, and to lessen their hopes of recovering their liberty." As an evidence of his absolute conquest, Edward therefore removed the regalia of the Scotish kings, and gave orders that the famous stone which was regarded as the national palladium should be conveyed to Westminster Abbey, where, accordingly, it was solemnly offered by the kneeling conqueror to the holiest of his name; and there, inclosed in the chair of King Edward and used at all coronations, it has ever since remained, notwithstanding that in the year 1328 N it was an article of the treaty of peace authorised by the great council at Northampton that it should be restored to the Scots. By writ of privy seal in that year, Edward III. directed the abbat and monks of Westminster to deliver it to the sheriffs of London for the purpose of being restored to Scotland, but the Scots were unable to obtain the performance of this stipulation. They made another attempt to bring back their talisman, by stipulating, in the year 1363, that the English should deliver it up to them, and that the King of England should come to be crowned upon it at Scone; but in this stipulation, also, the Scots were disappointed. Whatever may have become of the original chair in which Kenneth is said to have had the stone inclosed, and which does not appear to have been brought into England at all, it is certain, say the historians of Westminster Abbey, that the present coronation-chair was made for the reception of this highly-prized relic of ancient customs and sovereign power. In A.D. 1300, as appears by an entry in the Wardrobe Accounts, Master Walter the Painter was employed in certain work "on the new chair in which is the stone from Scotland," and he bought gold and divers colours for the painting of the same. The chair was once entirely covered with gilding and ornamental work, and the design is of Edward's time. Down to the period when Camden wrote his history, there were to be seen on a tablet that hung by this royal stone in the chapel of the Confessor at Westminster some lines which set forth that the stone is that on which Jacob placed his head. No earlier document is known in which the coronation-stone is connected with the patriarch, and whether his pillar is at this moment in the dome of the rock at Jerusalem, upon the hill at Tara, or in Westminster Abbey, we do not undertake to decide; but if for nearly seven centuries the posterity of King Malcolm Canmore and St. Margaret, the great-niece of Edward the Confessor and representative of the Saxon line, continued to reign over Scotland, the Scots have long recognised in the sovereign of Great Britain a representative of their ancient line of kings, and under the gentle sway of Queen Victoria may be well content with their share in the government of the United Kingdom, and with our possession of the Fatal Stone. THE BLACK ROOD OF SCOTLAND. ["Notes and Queries," vol. ii. p. 409.] A CORRESPONDENT of Notes and Queries asks what became of the Holy Cross, or "Black Rood," at the dissolution of the Priory of Durham, and he inquires for some particulars of its tradition. I fear the fact that it was formed of silver and gold gives little reason to hope that this historical relique escaped destruction, if it came into the hands of King Henry's church robbers. Its sanctity may, indeed, have induced the monks to send it, as they did some of their other reliques, to a place of refuge on the continent, until the tyranny should be overpast; but no tradition is preserved at Durham to throw light upon the question what became of the Black Rood. I subjoin, however, some particulars illustrative of its earlier history. I am not aware of any record in which mention of this relique occurs before the time of St. Margaret. It seems very probable that the venerated crucifix which was so termed was one of the treasures which descended with the crown of the AngloSaxon kings. When the princess Margaret, with her brother Edgar, the lawful heir to the throne of St. Edward the Confessor, fled into Scotland, after the victory of William, she carried this cross with her amongst her other treasures. Aelred of Rievaulx (ap. Twysd. 350) gives a reason why it was so highly valued, and some description of the Rood itself: Est autem crux illa longitudinem habens palmæ de auro purissimo mirabili opere fabricata, quæ in modum techæ clauditur et aperitur. Cernitur in ea quædam Dominicæ crucis portio (sicut sæpe multorum miraculorum argumento probatum est). Salvatoris nostri ymaginem habens de ebore densissime sculptam et aureis distinctionibus mirabiliter decoratam. St. Margaret appears to have destined it for the abbey which she and her royal husband, Malcolm III., founded at Dunfermline in honour of the Holy Trinity: and this cross seems to have engaged her last thoughts; for her confessor relates that, when dying, she caused it to be brought to her, and that she embraced, and gazed stedfastly upon it, until her soul passed from time to eternity. Upon her death (16th Nov. 1093), the Black Rood was deposited upon the altar of Dunfermline Abbey, where St. Margaret was interred. The next mention of it that I have found, occurs in 1292, in the Catalogue of Scotish Muniments which were received within the Castle of Edinburgh, in the presence of the Abbats of Dunfermline and Holy Rood, and the Commissioners of Edward I., on the 23rd August in that year, and were conveyed to Berwickupon-Tweed. Under the head Omnia ista inventa fuerunt in quadam cista in Dormitorio S. Crucis, et ibidem reposita per prædictos Abbates et alios, sub eorum sigillis, we find Unum scrinium argenteum deauratum, in quo reponitur crux quo vocatur la blake rode.-Robertson's Index, Introd. xiii. In the inventory made at Burgh-upon-Sands, 17th July, 35 Edward I. (1307), are the following items: In Coffro signato sup'ius signo Crucis. Videlt. crux Neyh' ornata auro et lapid' precios' una cum pede ejusd crucis de auro et gemis in quad' casula de corr' eu coffr' d'co pedi aptata. It. la Blakerode de Scot' fabricata in auro cu' cathena aur' in teca int'ï' lignea et ext'i' de arg' deaur'. It. crux S'ce Elene de Scot', &c. (Pro Rec. Comm.) It does not appear that any such fatality was ascribed to this relique as that which the Scots attributed to the possession of the famous stone on which their kings were crowned. If it had been, we might conjecture that when Edward I. brought the "fatal seat" from Scone to Westminster, he brought the Black Rood of Scotland too. We next find it in the possession of King David Bruce, who lost this treasured relique, with his own liberty, at the Battle of Durham (18th Oct. 1346), and from that time the monks of Durham became its possessors. In the "Description of the Ancient Monuments, Rites, and Customs of the Abbey Church of Durham," as they existed at the Dissolution, which was written in 1593, and was published by Davies in 1672, and subsequently by the Surtees Society, we find it described as A most faire roode or picture of our Saviour, in silver, called the Black Roode of Scotland, brought out of Holy Rood House, by King David Bruce . . . with the picture of Our Lady on the one side of our Saviour, and St. John's on the other side, very richly wrought in silver, all three having crownes of pure beaten gold of goldsmith's work, with a device or rest to take them off or on. The writer then describes the "fine wainscote work" to which this costly "rood and pictures" were fastened on a pillar at the east end of the southern aisle of the choir. And in a subsequent chapter (p. 21 of Surtees' Soc. volume) we have an account of the cross miraculously received by David I., and in honour of which he founded Holy Rood Abbey in 1128; from which account it clearly appears that this cross was distinct from the Black Rood of Scotland. For the writer, after stating that this miraculous cross had been brought from Holy Rood House by the king, as a "most fortunate relique," says: .... He lost the said crosse, which was taiken upon him, and many other most wourthie and excellent jewels. which all were offered up at the shryne of Saint Cuthbert, together with the Blacke Rude of Scotland (so termed) with Mary and John, maid of silver, being, as yt were, smoked all over, which was placed and sett up most exactlie in the piller next St. Cuthbert's shrine," &c. In the description written in 1593, as printed, the size of the Black Rood is not mentioned; but in Sanderson's "Antiquities of Durham," in which he follows that description, but with many variations and omissions, he says (p. 22.), in mentioning the Black Rood of Scotland, with the images, as above described,— Which rood and picture were all three very richly wrought in silver, and were all smoked black over, being large pictures of a yard or five quarters long, and on every one of their heads a crown of pure beaten gold, &c. I have one more (too brief) notice of this famous rood. It occurs in the list of reliques preserved in the Feretory of |