| The Stone of Scone a/k/a The Stone of Destiny--or is it?-- on display at Edinburgh Castle with the Scottish Crown Jewels. |
Back in 1996 the Conservative Government of the United Kingdom led by John
Major—Maggie Thatcher lite in trousers—was getting a little nervous about how long Her Majesty’s Kingdom might be united. Suffering through the tail end of a steep recession and continuing Tory attacks on the “power” of the Trade Union movement, social
services, and the dole had
helped to revive long simmering resentment in Scotland.
Specifically Major was edgy about growing cries for increased Scottish autonomy, a small but growing
nationalist movement, and the intimidating glower of Sean Connery.
Major, a master of the empty gesture,
decided to placate the Scots by
announcing on July 3, 1996 that the legendary
Stone of Scone would be returned to Scotland for safe keeping—at least until it was needed for the coronation of the next monarch.
The Stone’s origins traced back to mythic
prehistory. On it the Kings of Scotland had been enthroned for hundreds of years until Edward I of England made off
with the heavy object as a spoil of war in 1296. Edward hauled it to London and Westminster Abbey,
where he had it fitted into a wooden chair, known as King
Edward’s Chair, on which most subsequent
English sovereigns have been crowned.
It was a humiliating thumb of the
nose to the Scots and a symbolic
claim to be Lord Paramount of
Scotland and the superior to any
Scottish monarch.
The 336 pound Stone, about the size
and shape of a suitcase, was
removed from Edward’s Chair with great care and ceremony and was
transported with honor to the Scottish border for a transfer ceremony between representatives of the Home Office and of the Scottish Office on November 15,
1996. It was taken from there to Edinburgh Castle, arriving on St. Andrew’s Day November 30. At a ceremony in which Queen Elizabeth II was represented
by Prince Andrew it was formally
turned over to Scottish custody—with
the proviso that the Scotts would kindly send it back to London for the next coronation. The fact that the next likely person to require the Stone’s use—Prince Charles—was not on hand may be a clue that the English were not
entirely sure they would ever get it back. At any rate the Stone of Scone remains at the
Castle and is on display to the
public along with the long unused Crown Jewels of Scotland.
Some, however, believe the Stone was
not the Stone at all—that the Monks of
Monastery of Scone, a few miles north of Perth—had secreted the real stone, possibly at King Macbeth’s old castle at Dunsinane, and let Edward make off with
a counterfeit. To untangle the tale, it is best to start
at the beginning—if we can find it.
Legend has it that the Stone a/k/a
the Stone of Destiny, The Coronation Stone, Jacob’s Pillow Stone, the Tanist Stone, and in Scottish Gaelic clach-na-cinneamhain—it has more aliases than ten fugitives
from justice—originated in Ireland.
One tale credits the Dál Riata Gaels who established a kingdom spanning parts of
what is now Ulster and Argyle carved out of the Pict Kingdom around
the 4th or 5th Century.
This is dismissed by most scholars.
More
enduring is the story that the first King of the Scots, Fergus Son
of Erc, brought the stone from Ireland and was crowned on it having defeated
and overwhelmed the Picts before the year 500. The stone was
said to have been part of the Lia Fáil, the coronation stone of
the High Kings of Tara.
The Picts were another group of related Celtic tribes who held sway over the eastern and northern
parts of what is now Scotland, You may remember that were called the Caledonii by the Romans in Britain and
gave them such fits that Hadrian built
his great wall to keep them
out.
This is the foundation myth of Scotland.
But the Picts were never really
conquered by the waves of Irish known as the Scotts. Over a period of two or three hundred years
the kingdoms of the Dál Riata
and the Picts danced around various relationships before merging into the Kingdom of Alba—Scotland—before
900. If the Dál Riata or Scottish kings were crowned the Stone, it was probably not
until King Donald II, that
the Stone would have been used for the coronation of a somewhat united nation.
Donald was the first to be styled rí
Alban—King of Alba.
The Stone was said to be an
important symbol in the struggle to bring the various Celtic peoples into full conformity
with the Catholic Church. The Church propagated an entirely new
myth, that it was the stone used
as a pillow by the Israelite patriarch Jacob at Bet-El when he had a vision
from God and was brought to Ireland
by the prophet Jeremiah and from
there to Scotland.
Originally said to be held in lost
city of Evonium in Ayershire, the Stone was kept at the Monastery of Scone and thus in the hands of the Church from around
1,000. Claimants to the throne had
to journey to the Abby for
coronation thus placing themselves
under the blessing and protection of the Church.
There the stone sat and was sat on through the
sometimes tempestuous successions of
Scottish kings through the time of the Norman
Conquest of Britain.
At first the Scotts were quasi-allies
of the Normans, raiding the English coast with impunity as William the Conqueror ravaged the
kingdom of the Angles and Saxons. The Royal houses intermarried somewhat and the Scottish Court began to ape French styles and customs. But a clash
was inevitable.
When Alexander II died in an unfortunate fall from his horse in 1286
he left no direct heirs essentially
ending the Dunkeld Dynasty that had
ruled since Malcolm III in
1068. He named his granddaughter Margaret, Maid of Norway as his
heir, but she was quickly deposed. In fact, she never sat on the Stone and was never crowned or even set
foot in Scotland.
Several claimants, none very closely connected to the royal house were put
forward. But in 1291 John
Balliol, who traced a relation to David I King of the Scots from 1124–1153 through his mother
won the crown after a judgment of a panel of arbiters while England’s Edward I held
the realm in supposed stewardship
over his main rival Robert Bruce whose claim was slightly
more distant yet. Both Balliol
and Bruce, however, were essentially Anglo-Norman
noblemen. Balliol was dutifully
enthroned at Scone but did not hold power long.
Edward compelled Balliol to appear before the
English Parliament on essentially trumped
up charges and held for ransom in exchange for the Scotts levying taxes and raising arms for his wars in France. Balloil was forced to admit fealty to the English
king. He was stripped of the authority to govern by the Council Sterling. The Council concluded an alliance with the French
in retaliation and Edward invaded. Despite all of this as Balliol took to the field as the Scottish king but
was forced to abdicate after the
Scotts were defeated at Dunbar Castle
on April 27 on 1296.
To assert his primacy over Scotland
and any future Scottish kings, Edward took the Stone of Scone from the Abby and
took it with him to London where he incorporated it into the chair for the
coronation of English kings.
That meant that the unfortunate John
Balliol was the last King of Scotland
crowned upon the historic stone.
After an interim without a monarch
and rebellions against the
English led by William Wallace,
Robert the Bruce, grandson of John Balliol’s old rival,
was able to claim the Crown after murdering
his chief rival. Robert led a series of wars against the English and against his rivals in Scotland and
with a firm ally in the French was finally able to have Scotland recognized as a completely independent
Kingdom and in no way a vassal state
of the English king. This makes The
Bruce the great national hero of the
Scotts.
But alas, neither the heroic Bruce
nor any of his successors including the Stewart
and Stuart dynasties that
originated with the Bruce’s grandson Robert
II 1371 enjoyed the symbolic
legitimacy of having been crowned on the Stone.
Under the Treaty of Northampton 1328 between the Kingdom of Scotland and the
Kingdom of England, England agreed to return the captured Stone to Scotland.
However, riotous crowds prevented it from being removed from Westminster
Abbey. Those rioters may, or may not
have been encouraged by the Crown to circumvent the treaty it had
just signed.
When James VI of Scotland, son of Mary
Queen of Scotts came to the English throne as James I of England, first of the Stuart Dynasty he did so on the Coronation Chair containing the Stone. This united the two crowns while each
nation remained, theoretically anyway, independent. From that time onward—interrupted by the Cromwell’s Commonwealth—until the
reign of Queen Anne united England and Scotland as a single sovereign state, the Kingdom of Great Britain 1707, monarchs
of Scotland were again crowned on the Stone, but only because the simultaneously were enthroned as English Kings or Queens.
Since the ascent of the German House of Hanover with George I in 1714 British monarchs have
been elevated on the Stone. That
includes the most recent and current occupant, Elizabeth II of the re-named House
of Windsor in 1953.
In later years geologists examined the Stone that Edward captured and discovered
that it was made of a variety of red
sandstone quarried not far from Scone.
That meant one of two things—that the whole legend of Irish origin
which gave it legitimacy was a fraud
or that Edward had been fooled
and a counterfeit stone was pawned off on him
while the real stone was hidden by the Monks of Scone somewhere for
safekeeping.
A firm belief by many Scotts in the second alternative has, over the
centuries played out in very interesting ways.
A new legend arose in which
when the Stone was found again, a new and legitimate king would be enthroned who would inaugurate not just
the restoration of Scotland, but a
grand pan-Gaelic empire uniting
Ireland, Scotland, and Celtic regions on the English Border but perhaps Wales and even Britany in France. It was
sort of a Scottish version of the English return-of-the-king
prophesies arising from the Arthurian
legend.
Rumors of the Stone’s hiding place
set off many a fruitless quest. Many of those rumors centered on Macbeth’s castle at Dunsinane.
For instance in 1818 The
Chronicle in London printed this curious account:
On the 19th of November, as the servants belonging to the
West Mains of Dunsinane-house, were employed in carrying away stones from the
excavation made among the ruins that point out the site of Macbeth’s castle
here, part of the ground they stood on suddenly gave way, and sank down about
six feet, discovering a regularly built vault, about six feet long and four
wide. None of the men being injured, curiosity induced them to clear out the
subterranean recess, when they discovered among the ruins a large stone,
weighing about 500 lb. which is pronounced to be of the meteoric or
semi-metallic kind. This stone must have lain here during the long series of
ages since Macbeth’s reign. Besides it were also found two round tablets, of a
composition resembling bronze. On one of these two lines are engraved, which a
gentleman has thus deciphered.— “The sconce (or shadow) of kingdom come, until
Sylphs in air carry me again to Bethel.” These plates exhibit the figures of
targets for the arms. From time immemorial it has been believed among us here,
that unseen hands brought Jacob’s pillow from Bethel and dropped it on the site
where the palace of Scoon now stands. A strong belief is also entertained by
many in this part of the country that it was only a representation of this
Jacob’s pillow that Edward sent to Westminster, the sacred stone not having
been found by him. The curious here, aware of such traditions, and who have viewed
these venerable remains of antiquity, agree that Macbeth may, or rather must,
have deposited the stone in question at the bottom of his Castle, on the hill
of Dunsinane (from the trouble of the times), where it has been found by the
workmen.
This curious stone has been shipped for London for the
inspection of the scientific amateur, in order to discover its real quality.
If such a stone was shipped to
London, it has never been found. But, trust me, someone is at this moment rummaging through basements and sewers searching for it. Perhaps, even, it is the next quest of that eminent
symbologist Robert Langdon.
As a symbol of the Crown, the
Coronation Chair and Stone has also been the target of political violence. On June 11, 1914, a lady’s handbag, containing a bomb,
was hung on the back of the Chair in Westminster Abby. Exploding shortly after public
viewing hours closed at around 5:50 p.m. it blew off part of the carved
work at the back of the chair.
Although no individual was charged with carrying out the attack, Suffragettes were blamed because they
were angry over the passage of the recent Cat and Mouse Act. That Act
of Parliament officially known as the Prisoners
(Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913 which ordered Suffragettes in
prison and staging hunger strikes to
be released upon falling ill, but subject to re-arrest and imprisonment as soon as they recovered. Police reports indicated that the
damage to the Chair was minor, but made no mention of damage to the Stone.
In 1950 the Stone became the center of a plot by romantic young
Scottish nationalists which would make a hell of a good caper movie,
perhaps with comic overtones. On Christmas
Day four students, Ian Hamilton,
Gavin Vernon, Kay Matheson, and Alan
Stuart somehow took the Stone
from Westminster Abbey for return to Scotland and in the process managed to drop the heavy object breaking it into two pieces. The largest piece was, I kid you not, buried at a Gypsy camp site in Kent. The exact hiding place of the second half has not been determined. The four plotters
returned to Scotland where at the University
of Glasgow they recruited the assistance of a sympathetic
English student, John Josselyn,
ironically a lineal decedent of
Edward I, to smuggle it across the border.
A few days later the smaller piece
was retrieved, but at a stop at Leeds, the young folks could not resist a little
celebration—and libation taking
the Stone to nearby Ilkley Moor, a wild and beautiful place
fraught legendary significance where
they serenaded it with the traditional Yorkshire folk song On Ilkla Moor Baht ‘at (On Ilkley Moor without your hat.) This lighthearted
bit of business disposed of, the small fragment was reunited with the other. The fragments were passed to a senior Glasgow politician who arranged
for it to be professionally repaired by
stonemason Robert Graytaken.
Despite a frantic hunt and the amateur
status of the plotters, the British authorities were not able to find the
Stone, although they must have known it was in Scotland somewhere. On April 11, 1951 the stone was placed on the altar in the
ruins of Arbroath Abbey where they
believed the Church of Scotland would
take protective care of it and not allow its return. Of course as soon as authorities got wind of
it, they swooped in and seized the
stone, returning it to London in plenty of time for Queen Elizabeth’s investiture two years
later.
Of course some claim the students
only left a replica, fooling the English once again, and that the stone from
Edward’s chair, which if you remember itself may have been a phony, lays
securely in hiding.
The whole thing resembles a giant historical shell game—stone, stone,
who’s got the stone.
As for the students, their identity
was veiled but when reveled were not prosecuted. It seems that the Crown could not prove that it was the legal
owner of the stone and did not want
to risk a
ruling to that effect in court. Some
of the culprits went on to distinguished careers. Ian Hamilton became a lawyer and a leader of
the Scottish National Party. He authored an account of the caper in a bestselling book, The Taking of the Stone of Destiny
on which a 2008 movie Stone of Destiny was indeed made and
in which Hamilton appeared in a cameo.
Meanwhile Scottish restlessness has
continued, even risen, even after the establishment of a Scottish National Parliament in 1998. On September 18, 2014 Scotts voted in a referendum on
independence. The question will be
simply put—“Should Scotland be an independent country?” It was a close fought issue but the electorate
narrowly opted to remain in the United
Kingdom. Given the closeness of that
vote, the narrow victory for
another referendum on leaving the
European Union—most Scotts opposed Brexit
and favor continued—and the draconian austerity measures of the Tory Government under Prime Minister Theresa May there is was
a rising clamor for a new vote on independence.
Scottish Nationalists under Nicola
Sturgeon lead a minority government—by just two seats—in the Scottish
Parliament and are now the third largest party in the United Kingdom with
59 seats in the House of Commons where they are a major burr under
the saddle of Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Although the National Party is fervently republican and social democratic there are still some monarchists who still support a Stuart restoration. The current Stuart Pretender is Franz,
Duke of Bavaria, a lineal descendent
through his grandmother of Charles I
and styled Francis II by unreconstructed Jacobites. It is hard to imagine a
scenario where he would be crowned
King of the Scotts on Stone of Scone let alone King of the United
Kingdom.
But it is an open question if Prince Charles may ever sit over the Stone and assume either a united crown, or an English one.
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