For long after Scotland had developed into a vertebrate organism, its heart beat in the geographical centre. Its kings were crowned at Scone, Charles II. the last of them, when indeed the immemorial sanctity of that Pictish palace had fallen into some disesteem. The adjacent city of Perth, with its Castle, its Cathedral, and its four monasteries, was the Winchester of Scotland, as Scone the Westminster. The early Parliaments met at Perth more often than at other towns that might suit the convenience of kings who had to be much on the move through their agitated dominion. During the English intrusion, Perth was garrisoned by the Edwards’ lieutenants, and suffered repeated attacks from Wallace and Bruce, who found concealment and rallying-place in the wild woods within a few miles of the city walls. The honour of being the capital was not definitely taken from Perth till the murder of James I. showed it too near the stormy Highlands, while the Dunedin citadel seemed no longer in close peril from the English side.
Before the seat of government came to be fixed at Edinburgh, king and parliament are often found at Stirling, with Linlithgow for the Versailles of Scottish Royalty. Perth still held a high place, recognised by a decree of James VI. as second in the kingdom. Down to the end of his reign, its Provosts were as often as not the great lords of the neighbourhood. It had a leading voice in national opinion. Some of the earliest martyrs suffered here; then here broke out the first tumult of the Reformation. Later on, it became a hot focus of Presbyterian and Covenanting zeal; and after the popular worship had been firmly established, it was around Perth that sprang up several of its sectarian offshoots.
Accident of situation rather than its own choice again made Perth a centre of affairs, when Mar’s melting army lay here through the winter of 1715, watching King George’s force at Stirling; and the forlorn Old Pretender reached Scone in time to chill the spirits of his partisans, already too near freezing-point. Prince Charlie made a more dashing appearance at Perth for a few days; but when he had marched on, the douce burghers let it be seen that their hearts did not go with him. They more warmly received the Duke of Cumberland, as representing the orderly settlement that was good for trade. The wild Highlandman, with his uncanny weapons and his unbusiness-like sentiments, was here looked on as suspiciously as the Red Indian warrior in a border city of America, who in New York or Philadelphia would draw more sympathy or staring curiosity. The Fair City, while willing to keep friends with the Tory lairds whose names have been familiar to her for centuries, cast her douce vote for prosperity and progress. In the Georgian age she gained some such reputation as Norwich in England, cultivating arts and letters as well as trade, and becoming known, in a modest way, by her printing presses, of which the _Encyclopædia Perthensis_ was the most notable production.