Heart of stone

Shrouded in myth and mystery, the unremarkable-looking Stone of Scone– the ancient symbol of Scottish sovereigns–still plays a significant role in the coronations of British monarchs

- Matthew Dennison

A LETTER from a Scottish correspondent, published in London in the Morning Chronicle in the New Year of 1819, recorded a legend nurtured over many centuries. ‘From time immemorial,’ suggested the writer, ‘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.’ The Old Testament ‘pillow’ in question was a block of pale-red sandstone: the Stone of Scone.

Few geological specimens in the British Isles exude more powerful symbolism than the Stone of Scone; few have attracted a richer palimpsest of legend and lore. ‘As long as fate plays fair, where this Stone lies the Scots shall reign,’ the Aberdeenshire chronicler John of Fordun asserted in the second half of the 14th century in his five-volume account of Scotland’s early history, Chronica Gentis Scotorum. Events would mostly disprove Fordun’s rallying cry, yet this unyielding boul- der, in 1902 acclaimed by Queen Victoria’s Scottish son-in-law, the Duke of Argyll, as ‘the Stone of Wonder’, has featured in both Scottish and British history, a symbol of power, kingship and nationhood. For more than a millennium, the Stone of Scone—also called the Stone of Destiny—has played its part in coronations, first of kings of Scotland; then, afterwards, the Kings and Queens of the United Kingdoms of Scotland and England.