It has been a silent witness to the coronation of every monarch of Scotland and England for countless centuries. Last week it had the best seat in the house for the coronation of King Charles III. It is 26-inches long, 16-inches wide, 11-inches tall and weighs just over 330 pounds.
Its other name is the Stone of Scone [pronounced SKOON], as it had been kept at Scone Abbey near Perth, Scotland until the late 13th century.
It had already been used for hundreds of years in the crowning of Scottish kings when, during the First War of Scottish Independence in 1296, King Edward I invaded Scotland and took the stone away to England. He had a throne custom built for the stone to fit into – the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey.
The 20th century was a difficult time for the stone. It was seriously damaged on June 11, 1914 by a bomb planted by militant suffragettes of the Women’s Social and Political Union. Amazingly, the damage was not noticed until the morning of December 25, 1950, when a group of Scottish nationalists broke into the abbey and stole the stone so they could return it to Scotland (as dramatized in the 2008 movie Stone of Destiny). It took four months for the stone to be recovered and returned to Westminster.
On November 15, 1996, precisely 700 years after it had been taken away, the British Government returned the stone to Scotland. An official ceremony took place on St. Andrew’s Day, November 30th at Edinburgh Castle, when Prince Andrew, Duke of York transferred it via Royal Warrant to Scotland’s Commissioner for the Regalia. Since then the permanent home of the Stone of Destiny has been the Crown Room of Edinburgh Castle, where it resides alongside Scotland’s crown jewels (except when it is on loan for coronations such as happened last Saturday).
You could see the Stone of Destiny in person next September
Edinburgh Castle is one of the highlights of our September 1 – 11, 2023 Sacred Scotland tour, and we still have spaces available.
Here are a few more of the amazing places our small group will experience…
- Visit the Isle of Iona with its medieval abbey reputed to be the burial place of 48 kings of Scotland including Macbeth
- Fly to the Orkney Islands and visit Stones of Stenness, Maeshowe and Skara Brae
- Visit Dunfermline Abbey, ancient capital of Scotland and final resting place of 11 monarchs including Robert the Bruce
- Tour Rosslyn Chapel, featured in The da Vinci Code and associated with the Holy Grail
See complete Sacred Scotland Tour details here
Photo credits:
Stone of Destiny courtesy of https://edinburghcastle.scot
Edinburgh Castle: Nacckers, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons