private fubfcribers, four thoufand feven hundred and fifty-fix
royal boroughs, five hundred. But ftill this great work woj
¿ve met with a check for want of money, had not the EarlJ
Ktmoull, with his charafteriftic public fpirit, advanced the rend
mg fum and taken the fecurity of the tolls, with the hazard J to himfelf. “I
Several preceding bridges have been waihed away by the violcj
floods, that at times pour down from the highlands. The frt
misfortune on «cord is that which befel it in 1210, in the time.
William the Lton, before recited in p. 73. I am uncertain whether
it fuffered a fecond time before the year 1329; or whether the
order g.ven that year by Robert I, for liberty of getting ftoneso*
of the quarries of Kynkarachi and Balcormoc*, for the buildine of
that, the bridge of Earn, and the church of Perth, was not for
re-build.ng the former, which might have lain in ruins fince J days of William. After this, it met with a fucceffion o f misfotJ
tunes, in the years 1573, 1582, and 1589 ; and, finally, in the year
1621, when it had been juft- re-built and completed in the moS
magnificent manner, a fatal flood overthrew the whole: a judgment,
Taid the people, on the iniquity of the place, for in t6oi
here was held that parliament, at which bijhop were ereaed, and th\
lords rode firft m their fcarlet gowns f . From that period it lay ne-
glefted till the late fuccefsful attempt reftored it at leaft to its
former lplendor, .
* On opening this quarry, for the materials o f the prefent bridge, numbers of
the antient tools were difcovered.
4 Gabions, 8a.
On
- rm reaching the eaftern banks of the Pay, make a digreffion Scoae.
1 ° t a mile L d a half to the left, to fee the celebrated abbey of
f t * feated amidft beautiful woods, and, at a fmall diftance
I the river. Long before the foundation of the abbey, Scone
w «pi « »f »>“ • " “ c*"ed by f01“ ,h' , T 1 rf.be m l . W it certainly we. the feat of .be pr.nee, of SmU.J
J earlv aj the time of Kenneth. On a Tumulus, ftill in being, they
kept their courts of juftice : on this they fat to determine the pleas
between their barons, whence it was called the Mans Placiti de Scorn,
t a a H K m >" * • « * ,o”sue> § t e - for in very early times it was cuftomary for the great people
to deliver their laws from eminences of this kind. Our Drutds
had their Gorfeddau, where they fate aloft, and delivered their decrees,
ieir fentences, and their orations to the people.
M Legend relates, that the hill in queftion was called Omnis terra +,
being compofed of earth brought here by gentlemen out of every
country they had travelled in.- But with more truth it may be
faid, that Malcolm Mac-Kemeth, or Malcolm the II. feated in the
iamous chair, placed on this mount, ‘ gave and diftnbuted all
‘ his lands of the realm of Scotland amongft his men, and referved
‘ nathing in propertie to himfelf, bot the -royall dignitie, and the
‘ Mutehillm the towne of Scone%’ So that it ihould feem the very
ifsxiftence of his royal dignity depended on the pofieffion of this hill
I * Or Scyon, as it is called in a charter o f Alexander II. V id e AnJer/on's D iph-
Irnla, No. XXX.
S -j- /rouzVs Nomencl. Hift. Scot. s i 2. ’
| | g i Regiam Majeft. p. 1. and Boethius, lib . XI. p. 245*
CL * of