The controversial history of the crown stone

Despite its age, the chair is only part of the Crown’s history. Under the seat, there is a wooden platform, with a few initials carved by naughty students from Westminster School. This was designed by Edward I in 1296 to house the Coronation Stone, a sacred stone of mysterious origin that he brought from Scotland.

The platform is currently empty – but before his accession to the throne on May 6, the stone will be moved from Edinburgh Castle (where it sits alongside the Scottish Crown Jewels) to the Abbey when Charles III is crowned King of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. .

The Coronation Stone – also known as the Stone of Fortune or the Stone of Fortune – is an ancient symbol of Scottish sovereignty with links to Ireland and Spain, borrowed from the English and even linked to biblical history.

But, despite its long (and controversial) history, it looks like a fairly unrecognizable stone: a rectangular pinkish sandstone weighing 125 kilograms in the size of a small suitcase. The only decoration is a roughly cut cross. Metal rings are installed at each end. No one knows for sure when they were attached or whether their purpose was to move the stone easily or to attach it to the chain. This is one of the many mysteries surrounding the stone.

According to legend, it was the same rock that the biblical figure Jacob (the father of the Israelites) used as a pillow in Bethel when he climbed the ladder to heaven. From here, one of Jacob’s sons is said to have taken it to Egypt, then to Spain and later to Ireland when Simon Brecht, son of the King of Spain, invaded the island in 700 BCE.

There he was named after being seated on the sacred hill of Tara near Screen in County Meath. Leah’s failureor “Speaking Stone” because it is silent if the claimant is of royal blood but an impostor.

Ulster Scots historian, journalist and broadcaster Dr David Hume said: “There are many Leah files in ancient Irish history.” “In 496 A.D. a stone was in the possession of King Fergus Mor MacEirch, a kingdom called Dalriada covering the Irish Sea and including parts of western Scotland.”

According to Hume’s story, when Fergus moved his throne to Dunnad Argyll in AD 498 and became the first king of Scots, he took the Lea File stone from Ireland to Scotland. However, it is uncertain how true the story is. The main evidence for this is in the declaration of Arbrat of Scotland issued in 1320 AD by the signatures of the Scottish nobles in their petition to the Pope to recognize the independence of Scotland, which mentions the “glory” that came from Israel through the Mediterranean Sea.

Whatever the truth, we do know that the stone was taken to Scone Abbey in Perthshire – after Kenneth I, who united the Scottish and Pictish kingdoms and is known as the first King of Scotland – moved his capital from western Scotland to Scone around 840 AD. This “stone of destiny” has been used in the coronation ceremonies of Scottish kings for centuries.

But in the year After his victory at the Battle of Dunbar in 1296, King Edward I of England marched north, took the stone from Scone Abbey and had it fitted to a specially made wooden coronation chair, which English and later English-kings held. He has since been crowned in London’s Westminster Abbey.

However, even this story is still controversial.

There is a rumor that the monks at Scone Palace actually hid the actual stone in the River Tay and tricked the British soldiers into taking it instead. Geologists have also confirmed that the stone held by Edward I was forged in the area of ​​Scone, not in biblical Judea. A more ancient stone was probably used for crowning the kings of Ireland, and this was probably first brought to Antrim from Tara, and then to Scotland by King Fergus, but after some time it was replaced by the present stone, as recently Scan.

However, no one ever found the hidden stone, and although Scotland was not yet part of the United Kingdom, the stone Edward took symbolically gave future English kings the power to rule over Scotland. Because of this, the current stone, a physical representation of the seat of the monarchy, has been the target of political activists for years.

In the year In 1914, drivers bombed under the seat. During World War II, fears of German bombing led to the stone being secretly buried under Westminster Abbey, while the Crown Chair was moved to Gloucester Cathedral until the end of the war.

But shortly after their return, on Christmas Eve 1950, a group of Scottish nationalist students broke into the Abbey, removing the broken stone (probably from sound bomb damage) in the process and hiding it until it fell. It has been fixed. Four months later he sat at the high altar of the ruined Arbroath Abbey – a building long associated with Scottish independence.

It was a dramatic event, and although the stone was returned to Westminster, the students were never charged and calls for Scottish independence continued to grow. In the year In 1996, John Major, then Prime Minister of England, attempted to silence these calls in a dramatic PR move by announcing that the stone would be returned to Scotland to be used in future coronation talks.

Allowing this to happen was only half the battle. Lifting the stone was a difficult task in itself.

“When the stone was returned to Scotland in 1996, the process of removing it from the chair required great care to ensure both were fully preserved,” explained Cathy Richmond, Head of Collections and Applied Conservation at Historic Environment Scotland.

“A specially designed scaffold had to be carried to the Abbey and carefully placed on the coronation chair. A running pulley was then mounted on top and the stone lifted from the chair, blocked and tackled before being lowered in a special way. A hand barrow was made. The whole operation took six hours.”

This same process will be repeated later this year when the stone is brought to London for the coronation of King Charles. After the stone is placed under the throne chair, it is moved through the west door to the Coronation Theater, located in the center of Westminster Abbey in the center of the lines of the cross where the monastery was built. Historically, this area was decorated with colorful wall paintings. Its most striking feature today is the bold medieval mosaic floor known as the Cosmati Pavement.

And the king said, “Hereby the king shall be anointed archbishop of Canterbury.” “For this private part of the ceremony, four knights of the garter are draped over the throne. The king of the day is presented with the sacrificial sword (returned to him), then the sovereign’s scepter and the golden orb before he arrives. Finally, Edward is crowned.”

These crown jewels are the heart of the collection of crown jewels on display at the Tower of London.. But now visitors to the tower cannot see as usual. The crown is being scaled to match that of King Charles III, and many other items will be borrowed to be worn by other members of the royal family.

The Abbey will be closed to the public in the days leading up to May 6 – as will Edinburgh Castle when the Lucky Stone is removed. Given the history and significance of the stone, the exact details of when and how it was transported are a closely guarded secret.

But while these ancient buildings and monuments are a magnet for tourists to the UK, the coronation will be a reminder of their history – a history intertwined with that of the British Isles and perhaps the patriarch of Israel.

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