THE CORONATION CHAIR AND STONE.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 1049, 24 June 1902, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE CORONATION CHAIR AND STONE.

11 These venerable relics have been over and over again described and engraved, but so inacourately, in all works of this description, that a few words will not be wasted, perhaps, in their illustration. And first of the stone itself—the Lia-faij, or fatal stone of Ireland—the palladium of Scotland. The legendary history commences with the patriarch Jacob, who is said to have rested his head upon it in the plains of Luz; carried by the Scythians into Spain, it was thence transported to Ireland by Simon Brecus, or Brek, son of Milo, in the time of Romulus and Remus. Its place was the hill of Tar a, and upon it the Kings of Ireland are supposed to have been crowned. The miraculous power was attributed to it of proving the legitimacy of the Royal race by making ' a prodigious noise,' and being 4 surprisingly disturbed' whenever a prince of the Scythian line—that is, one of the descendants of Milo, or Milesius, King of Spain, was seated upon it. From Ireland it was removed to Scotland, 330 years before the Christian era, by Fergus, the son of Farquahard. In the year 850 it was placed in the Abbey of Scone, in the county of Perth, by King Kenneth, who iB reported to have caused to be inscribed upon it in Gaelic an ancient prophecy to this effect:— ; ' If fate speak sooth, where'er this stone is found, i The Scots shall tnonarchs of that realm be crowned/ i " At Scone it remained till Edward I. dethroned Baliol, in l 1296, when the victor sent it.to London, with the regalia of J the Scottish monarch, and presented it the following year j ' on the morrow of St. Botolph,' as well as the regalia, at the ' throne of St. Edward the Confessor, through whose vir- j tues he had acquired them; and with this fact its authentic : his ory commences, together with th*t of the wooden chair j which has ever since been its repository. " In the wardrobe account of Edward 1., amongst the en- I tries of the year 1300, we read' To Master Walter, the I

painter, for costs and expenses incurred by him about making one step at the foot of the new chair in which is the Koue .from Scotland, setup near the altar before St. Edward's shrine in the abbatial church at Westminster, in pursuance of the order of the King in the month of March ; and for the wages of the carpenter and painter for paioting the said step, ami for gold and divers colours brought for the painting of the same, together with the making of one case for covering the said chair, as appears from the particulars of the wardrobe books—lt. 19*. Id' This 'stone from Scotland', is described by Mr. Brayley as bearing much 'resemblance to the dunstones, such as are brought from Dundee for various purposes, of an oblong form, but irregular, measuring 26in. in length, 16fin. in breadth, and lOJin. in thickness. Tradition intimates, as we have seen, that this stone was originally brought from Egypt, and it is remarkable that the substances composing it accord in the grains with the sienite of Pliny, the same as Pompey's (or more properly Diocletian's) Pillar at Alexandria, but the particles are much smaller. "The prophetic distich, said to have been cut on it by command of King Kenneth, is nowhere to be seen, nor can any trace of such an inscription be found. Buchanan says ; 4 This stone Kenneth removed out of Areyle to Scone, by the river Tay, and plaoed it there, enclosed ip a chair of wood.' Of Kenneth's chair no remains have been ever heard of, nor does it appear from the historians that - Edward brought it to London with the stone, though it is not improbable that he did so, and the mention in the wardrobe accounts of 'the new chair' rather supports the belief that the writer was cognisant of an old one. In that case the distioh might have been carved on the Scotch chair. It was not very likely to be copied upon the English one.

The chair is of solid oak, and still firm and sound, though much disfigured by wanton mutilations, as well as the hand of time. Immediately under the flat Heat" the stone " rests on a kind of middle frame, supported at the corners by four crouch* ins lions on a bottom frame or plinth. All around, on a level with the stone, ran formerly a beautiful piece of tracery, in quarterly divisions, each containing a beaten shield, origin* ally emblazoned; but there are no vestiges of the arms sufficiently distinctto be identified. Of these shields only four out of ten remain—two at the back, and two on the left side. All the rest have been broken away, and even the tracery itself is entirely gone in front, so that the stone is there fully exposed to view. The back is terminated by a high pediment, along each angle of which are five crockets; but these, as well as the moulding whereon they are mounted, are of an inferior workmanship to the rest of the chair, and of subsequent addition. each side of the pediment is a smooth flat division, about 3in. broad, which appears to have contained a number of small plates of metal, probably with armorial bearings enamelled upou them. Tne wholo chair has been completely covered with gilding and ornamental work, much of which may yet be distinguished on close inspection. On the instde of the back are some faint traces of a male figure in a Royal robe, a small portion of the bottom of which, together with a foot and shoe (the latter somewhat sharp-pointed) are still visible;, but they were more so within memory. Below the elbow on the left side is distinguishable a running pattern of oak leaves and worms, with red-breasts and falcons on the oaken sprays in alternate order; a different pattern of diapered work is shown on the right side, as well as within the tiers of panelled niches which adorn the outer side and back of the chair.