To crown the monarch of the United Kingdom, you need a 336-pound block of sandstone. But who really owns that big chunk of stone, and who was the thief who stole it from its rightful place?
Featured image: A replica of the stone that stands outside Scone Palace, Scotland. (Image source)
A painting of St. Edward’s chair with the stone inside for the coronation of George V. (Image source)
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A photograph of the chair with the stone inside from 1910. (Image source)
The chair as it stands today, without the stone. (Image source)
Westminster Abbey during the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, with St. Edward’s chair on the upper right. (Image source)
The stone is transported back to England for the first time since 1996 for the coronation ceremony of King Charles III. (Image source)
The grounds of Stone Palace with the replica stone. (Image source)
The hiding spot of the larger piece of the stone, drawn by Ian Hamilton as a safeguard in case anything happened to him before he was able to return to England to retrieve it. (Image source)
England’s coronation stone in Kingston-upon-Thames. (Image source)
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The Irish Stone of Destiny, which stands very erect at the Hill of Tara. (Image source)
A trailer for Stone of Destiny, a 2008 film dramatizing the real events of the students’ removal of the stone.
The coronation of Charles III on the stone.
An interview with Ian Hamilton in 2019.
Sources
About the Stone of Destiny and the Coronation Chair
- No Stone Unturned
- The Coronation Chair and Stone of Scone: History, Archaeology and Conservation
- Stone of Scone
- The Stone’s Origins
- The Coronation Chair
- Coronation Chair
- The Stone of Destiny
- Ian Hamilton on Stone of Destiny: I felt I was holding Scotland’s soul
- Researchers Find Hidden Markings on the Stone of Destiny, Sacred Slab Used in British Coronations
- How I took the British Coronation Stone
- Scotland welcomes the new Stone age
- 20 facts revealed about the Stone of Destiny
- Gavin Vernon
Other history relevant to the stone’s journey through Britain and the titles of the British monarchy
- The Romans in Scotland
- The Antonine Wall
- Lia Fáil
- Prince’s Stone
- Where England Began
- Kenneth I
- Scone Abbey
- Elizabeth I to James VI, 1603
- Union of the Crowns
- Coronation ampulla of Charles I
- Kings and Queens of England & Britain
- Charles II (r. 1660-1685)
- The coronation of Charles II
- About the Scottish Parliament
- A Not-So-Brief History of Scottish Independence
- Why some Welsh people think Charles should have been the last Prince of Wales
- United Kingdom
- Compton MacKenzie
- Questions raised over Queen’s ancestry after DNA test on Richard III’s cousins