Post by dreamy on Mar 27, 2006 6:31:35 GMT 10
Rough ride for a rough stone
KATH GOURLAY
THIS weekend Clan Bruce will gather at Scone - near Stirling - to commemorate the 700th anniversary of their famous ancestor being crowned King of Scotland there in March 1306. On Sunday, a latter-day Robert the Bruce will re-enact the ceremony.
Much noise has been heard from Scottish National Party (SNP) members at Holyrood over the Scottish Executive's refusal to allow the Stone of Destiny to be borrowed from Edinburgh Castle for this event - and others - during the anniversary year. Former SNP leader John Swinney has accused ministers of failing to promote tourism (and of political bias) in their refusal to release such an important symbol of Scottish national identity. All very patriotic.
Robert the Bruce surveys the Royal Burgh of Stirling from the esplanade of Stirling Castle.
Except that the roughly cut stone in Edinburgh was never used for Bruce's coronation in the first place. Edward I of England had carried off the massive slab to Westminster and it was only returned to Scotland in 1996. Edward had taken what he claimed was the Stone of Destiny from Scone Abbey in 1296, so it could not have been used in Bruce's coronation ten years later. And, if you believe those who say Edward was fobbed off with a false stone, the real one being produced for 1306 crowning, then the object now resting in Edinburgh is of even less significance.
The slab returned in a futile pre-election move in 1996 was a piece of rough quarried sandstone that had been wedged under the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey. Sandstone is readily available and it seems much confusion still exists over replica "Stones of Destiny" associated with a monumental sculptor's yard owned by a certain Bailie Gray of Glasgow, one of the founder members of the National Party of Scotland, and the man who repaired the stone at Westminster after it was repatriated by Glasgow University students on Christmas Day 1950. A large chunk broke off when it fell after being levered out of the Coronation Chair and it was carried back to Scotland in two pieces.
On 28 December, a night watchman at Gray's yard fell over "an unusual old stone with a ring at each end." He recalled it the next day when he saw a press photograph of the missing stone. Police were called - but the stone had disappeared.
Meanwhile, members of the Scottish Covenant Association – precursors to the SNP – had driven round Glasgow in a lorry brandishing a stone they claimed as the "kidnapped" Stone of Destiny. Nobody paid the slightest attention – including police – and what was claimed to be the Stone of Destiny was found four months later at Arbroath Abbey, where the formal Declaration of Scottish Independence had been drawn up in 1320.
Edinburgh Castle is home to the supposedly real Stone of Destiny.
For 25 years Gray kept silent on whether the stone returned to Westminster was the original; he insisted the one in the lorry had been a fake. Before he died in 1975, Gray said he had placed an "independent Scotland" message in a cylinder at the centre of the stone. At the time, Scottish Covenant made use of stone hollowed out for the repair by offering jewellery with "genuine piece of Stone of Destiny" in raffle tickets to support their cause. An original Covenant member admits to still having one.
Where the replica (or replicas) ended up is anybody's guess, but the one on the lorry is said to have gone to British Columbia with Gavin Vernon, one of the four students. Vernon died in 2004 and his family are keeping silent.
The Scottish Records Office released documents authenticating the stone in Edinburgh Castle as the original Westminster Stone but X-rays showed the bolts securing the centre as solid, with no hollow tube or message.
A separate metal tube near a broken corner was found during restoration work in Edinburgh after 1996 but this was not the 1950s break. Inside this tube was a modern piece of paper torn in half with "Sco" written on it. But this, it seems, was not a message of independence either, merely an identification measure after another attempt to steal it resulted in a corner being broken in 1974. Apparently Abbey staff bored the hole and stuck the lead pipe in. They retained the other half of the paper.
So all in all, the stone is hardly an artefact held in much respect. Which doesn't bother the many Scots who believe Edward only took a rough sandstone dungeon cap when he couldn't find the original, and to save face announced it was the Scottish Stone of Scone used to crown kings. The rings on either end of the Westminster stone are typical of those used to thread a rod through to pull up dungeon caps.
An entry in Royal Household Accounts for the year 1300 showed costings in the King's Wardrobe Account where craftsman Walter of Durham made a cheap wooden chair – the one that has housed the Westminster Stone for 700 years. Originally Edward brought over Italian craftsmen to make a gilt and bronze chair to hold the Stone of Destiny but he went on a rampage of destruction after his soldiers returned from Scone Abbey in 1296 and left the Westminster stone lying exposed to all weathers for four years before he bothered to do anything with it.
And Robert the Bruce never seemed bothered enough to follow up such a theft. Hardly the act of a future Scottish king bereft of his traditional coronation seat. The Bruce seal showing Robert's crowning - on 25 March 1306 - has him sitting happily on something hollow and concave.
To be sure, it will be interesting to see what his current clan members come up with on Sunday.
heritage.scotsman.com/places.cfm?id=426352006
KATH GOURLAY
THIS weekend Clan Bruce will gather at Scone - near Stirling - to commemorate the 700th anniversary of their famous ancestor being crowned King of Scotland there in March 1306. On Sunday, a latter-day Robert the Bruce will re-enact the ceremony.
Much noise has been heard from Scottish National Party (SNP) members at Holyrood over the Scottish Executive's refusal to allow the Stone of Destiny to be borrowed from Edinburgh Castle for this event - and others - during the anniversary year. Former SNP leader John Swinney has accused ministers of failing to promote tourism (and of political bias) in their refusal to release such an important symbol of Scottish national identity. All very patriotic.
Robert the Bruce surveys the Royal Burgh of Stirling from the esplanade of Stirling Castle.
Except that the roughly cut stone in Edinburgh was never used for Bruce's coronation in the first place. Edward I of England had carried off the massive slab to Westminster and it was only returned to Scotland in 1996. Edward had taken what he claimed was the Stone of Destiny from Scone Abbey in 1296, so it could not have been used in Bruce's coronation ten years later. And, if you believe those who say Edward was fobbed off with a false stone, the real one being produced for 1306 crowning, then the object now resting in Edinburgh is of even less significance.
The slab returned in a futile pre-election move in 1996 was a piece of rough quarried sandstone that had been wedged under the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey. Sandstone is readily available and it seems much confusion still exists over replica "Stones of Destiny" associated with a monumental sculptor's yard owned by a certain Bailie Gray of Glasgow, one of the founder members of the National Party of Scotland, and the man who repaired the stone at Westminster after it was repatriated by Glasgow University students on Christmas Day 1950. A large chunk broke off when it fell after being levered out of the Coronation Chair and it was carried back to Scotland in two pieces.
On 28 December, a night watchman at Gray's yard fell over "an unusual old stone with a ring at each end." He recalled it the next day when he saw a press photograph of the missing stone. Police were called - but the stone had disappeared.
Meanwhile, members of the Scottish Covenant Association – precursors to the SNP – had driven round Glasgow in a lorry brandishing a stone they claimed as the "kidnapped" Stone of Destiny. Nobody paid the slightest attention – including police – and what was claimed to be the Stone of Destiny was found four months later at Arbroath Abbey, where the formal Declaration of Scottish Independence had been drawn up in 1320.
Edinburgh Castle is home to the supposedly real Stone of Destiny.
For 25 years Gray kept silent on whether the stone returned to Westminster was the original; he insisted the one in the lorry had been a fake. Before he died in 1975, Gray said he had placed an "independent Scotland" message in a cylinder at the centre of the stone. At the time, Scottish Covenant made use of stone hollowed out for the repair by offering jewellery with "genuine piece of Stone of Destiny" in raffle tickets to support their cause. An original Covenant member admits to still having one.
Where the replica (or replicas) ended up is anybody's guess, but the one on the lorry is said to have gone to British Columbia with Gavin Vernon, one of the four students. Vernon died in 2004 and his family are keeping silent.
The Scottish Records Office released documents authenticating the stone in Edinburgh Castle as the original Westminster Stone but X-rays showed the bolts securing the centre as solid, with no hollow tube or message.
A separate metal tube near a broken corner was found during restoration work in Edinburgh after 1996 but this was not the 1950s break. Inside this tube was a modern piece of paper torn in half with "Sco" written on it. But this, it seems, was not a message of independence either, merely an identification measure after another attempt to steal it resulted in a corner being broken in 1974. Apparently Abbey staff bored the hole and stuck the lead pipe in. They retained the other half of the paper.
So all in all, the stone is hardly an artefact held in much respect. Which doesn't bother the many Scots who believe Edward only took a rough sandstone dungeon cap when he couldn't find the original, and to save face announced it was the Scottish Stone of Scone used to crown kings. The rings on either end of the Westminster stone are typical of those used to thread a rod through to pull up dungeon caps.
An entry in Royal Household Accounts for the year 1300 showed costings in the King's Wardrobe Account where craftsman Walter of Durham made a cheap wooden chair – the one that has housed the Westminster Stone for 700 years. Originally Edward brought over Italian craftsmen to make a gilt and bronze chair to hold the Stone of Destiny but he went on a rampage of destruction after his soldiers returned from Scone Abbey in 1296 and left the Westminster stone lying exposed to all weathers for four years before he bothered to do anything with it.
And Robert the Bruce never seemed bothered enough to follow up such a theft. Hardly the act of a future Scottish king bereft of his traditional coronation seat. The Bruce seal showing Robert's crowning - on 25 March 1306 - has him sitting happily on something hollow and concave.
To be sure, it will be interesting to see what his current clan members come up with on Sunday.
heritage.scotsman.com/places.cfm?id=426352006