Schiller, "Frederick had the chief claim on the confidence and gratitude of the Bohemians; and among all the competitors there was no one in whom preference, arising from private interests and popular inclination, was apparently so completely justified by the advantages of the state. Frederick was of a free and spirited disposition, of great goodness of heart, and regal liberality. He was the head of the Calvinist party in Germany, the leader of the union" (Protestant Evangelical), "whose resources were at his disposal, a near relation of the Duke of Bavaria, and a son-in-law of the King of Great Britain, who might lend him his powerful support. All these advantages were prominently and successfully brought forward by the Calvinists, and Frederick was chosen king by the Assembly at Prague, amidst tears of joy and prayers for his success.' He at first hesitated about accepting the crown, when the Electress piquantly and energetically said to him, “You were bold enough to marry the daughter of a king, and do you hesitate to accept the crown which is voluntarily offered you? I would rather live on bread at a kingly table, than feast at an electoral board." Her words were realised in her destiny; for, as the same writer relates, "a rash confidence in his untried strength, the influence of French counsels, and the seductive glitter of a crown, had impelled that unfortunate prince into an enterprise to which neither his genius nor his political powers were at all proportionate. By the partition of his territories, and the bad understanding which subsisted among their possessors, the power of the palatinate was enfeebled, which, if wielded by a single hand, would have rendered the issue of the war for a long time doubtful." During Frederick's struggle to maintain his newly-acquired dignity, his father-in-law, James of England, from being engrossed with cares and objects of his own, stood for a long time aloof, and only when he began to see peril awaiting his daughter's rank and happiness, offered assistance for averting it. For, from the feebleness or mean desertion of the Protestant German princes, the powerful Ferdinand II., after the fatal battle of Prague in 1620, deprived the unfortunate Frederick both of his Bohemian crown and his * Thirty Years War. 12mo. 1828. Vol. i. p. 129. palatine electorate his hereditary dominions being shared among his enemies. Mr Macaulay also sanctions the title of Queen of Bohemia, as applicable to the unfortunate Elizabeth, in quoting a proposal of Burnet's in the House of Lords, at King William's suggestion, that on certain events, as to issue occurring, "The crown should, failing heirs of her Majesty's body, be entailed on an undoubted Protestant, Sophia, Duchess of Brunswick-Lunenburg, granddaughter of James I., and daughter of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia," a proposal which the Lords unanimously assented to, but the Commons unanimously rejected it.* As to the Annunciation Stone on the ceiling of the oriel window of the Palace, a cast of which, in plaster-of-Paris, the only one ever executed with success, and by a native of Dunfermline, is at the Manse, it may be remarked, that the anomaly of the angel holding apparently a scourge in his right hand, is now believed to be a blunder of the artist, in place of a sceptre (one of peace), and the angel's right wing, the upper part of which it touches.+ In the crypt or vault adjoining the Palace, under the ruins of the palace kitchen, there are various mason-marks upon certain stones of the pillars, upon the wall at the north side of the east door, and also upon the outside of the vault. Those in the interior are (a) (1) (3) (4) (5) (6) X X A V 1 V T X W X Mr A. Jervise, F.S.A., Scot., when in Dunfermline (May 1857) copied these, and presented them to me, with the following note: Marks (1) and (2), (3) and (4), (5) and (6), appear respectively to be the same marks inverted. All the above * History of England, vol. iii. pp. 394, 395. marks are frequently repeated upon the same part of the building." He adds, "They are curious, in so far as none of them are similar, with the exception of that marked (), to those engraved in the Archæologia, vol. xxxiv., in connection with an excellent paper on the subject by the late eminent Scottish antiquary, Patrick Chalmers, Esq. of Aldbar, and given as for the cathedral and steeple of Brechin." He does not think that there is much to be gathered from mason-marks, and alludes to a theory abroad lately, that the number of such marks upon a building indicated that the same number of masons were employed in its erection. He has paid, however, great attention to the subject, and having collected at various periods merchants' marks from tombstones, and masons' marks from old ecclesiastical and baronial buildings, he communicated a selection from the former, with accompanying instructive memoranda, to the periodical entitled Current Notes of Early Merchants' Marks in England. Those which he sent were all from freestone monuments in the burial-grounds at Stirling, Old Greyfriars (Edinburgh), Perth, and Dundee. The paper will be read with interest by the curious in such subjects. I may here introduce a portion of a communication which I had the pleasure of receiving from Edward A. Freeman, Esq., M.A., late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, in January 1856, after a short visit which he paid me a month previous, written from memory, on the ancient buildings in Dunfermline. "As to the Palace," he says, "I think you give sufficient historical data for fixing the date of the earliest existing portions of the Palace, namely, to the reign of Robert Bruce. You say that all the buildings were destroyed by Edward I., the Church forming a self-evident. exception, and that it was subsequently a royal residence of King Robert. From this it clearly follows that he was its rebuilder. This date agrees very well with what I remember of the earlier portions. I do not think there is anything earlier, but there are signs of one, if not two, later alterations. I should assign the whole of the Palace and the domestic buildings of the monastery to a general reparation after the destruction by Edward I.; a reparation which might easily be extended over the greater portion of the fourteenth century. The |