Lia Fail - The Stone of Destiny

'The seat of kings was moved to Scone, sacred centre of Pictland, and the royal sons of Alpin accepted their inheritance upon a stone slab which tradition believes was taken from Tara in Ireland, built into the wall of Dunstaffnage Castle, and then brought reverently to Scone. Geologists say it is Lower Old Red Sandstone, and quarried nearby.' John Prebble in The Lion in the North Penguin.

Major to return Stone of Scone to Scotland

John Major has announced that the Stone of Scone will be returned to Scotland, on the 700 th Anniversary of its removal. The Stone of Destiny, the sacred Lia Fail on which Dalriadic and Scots Kings were enthroned, was stolen from Scone Abbey by Edward I of England in 1296 - or was it?

Is the Stone at Westminster the real Stone, or merely a 13th century fake? Is the Stone the English took home with them just a lump of red sandstone quarried at Scone to deceive Edward I, while the true Scottish Coronation Stone was secretly burried somewhere in Perthshire?

From The Lion in the North, By John Prebble

Edward (II) renounced all claims of sovereignty, and declared that his most dear friend and ally, the Lord Robert, was 'by the grace of God illustrius King of Scots'. He agreed to return all documents relating to Scotland's freedom or subjection, all that could be found that is, and this promise was duly fulfilled, six hundred years later by his descendant. Margaret's holy relic, the Black Rood with its fragment of the True Cross, came back to the abbey by Edinburgh, but the Stone of Destiny was not returned, nor was it mentioned in the treaty, a curious and intriguing omission. Scottish legend, unwilling to think this slab of sandstone meant so little to Bruce, believes that Edward agreed to restore it but was prevented by the citizens of London. To be fair to the myth, English records suggest that when Isabella came to her daughter's wedding she promised to return the Stone (William Croft Dickson, Scotland from the Earliest Times to 1603), but there seems to be no record of a Scots request for it at this time.

It seems incredible that Robert the Bruce, who was anxious to prove his right to the throne of his ancestors, did not make any attempt to regain his country's most sacred talisman. Nigel Tranter suggests why:

From The Story of Scotland, By Nigel Tranter

Edward I returned to Scone Abbey, from which he had thought he had taken the Stone of Destiny, two years before, along with Queen Margaret's famous Black Rood. Now he pulled the Abbey apart almost stone by stone; most clearly he realised that he had been duped, and that the Stone he had taken to London was only a lump of Scone sandstone, while the real Lia Fail remained in Scotland. Needless to say he did not find it.

On 25 March 1306, at the traditional moot-hill of Scone Abbey, Bruce was crowned King Robert of Scots, the first of that name. Almost certainly he was crowned seated on the true Stone of Destiny, for he was most concerned that all should be done in fullest traditional fashion - for nothing was more certain than that Edward would declare that the coronation was invalid and a mockery, without his permission. We know that Edward had been duped over the Stone, so that the real one was still in Scotland, very different as described by the ancient chroniclers, from the lump of hewn sandstone under the Coronation Chair in London. And there is a strong tradition that on his death-bed twenty-three years later Bruce gave the Stone into the safe-keeping of Angus Og, Lord of the Isles, his friend, to be held secure in the Hebrides - where presumably it still remains.

At last in 1328, the longed-for peace-treaty was concluded. Typically, it has been the habit in the south to refer to this as the Treaty of Northampton; but it was only the preliminaries of the vital compact which were settled there. The treaty was finalised and signed in Edinburgh, and was so named. An interesting feature of it was the English offer to return what they called the Stone of Scone, kept at Westminster. It is significant that the Scots did not want it, something which ought to have made succeeding generations realise that this was not the true Stone of Destiny but a mere fake. That the Westminster Stone is still revered is rather astonishing; but of course, it has perhaps been hallowed by the subsequent royal bottoms for 700 years.

And there are even doubts as to whether the Stone at Westminster is the same lump of local red sandstone which Edward I removed from Scone Abbey in 1296. The Stone has remained below the Coronation Chair in the Chapel of Edward the Confessor for 700 years with the exception of six months in 1950-51. It was repatriated by several Scots including Ian Hamilton QC, recently SNP candidate for Mid Scotland and Fife in the 1994 European Elections. The Stone was returned to Scotland but was supposedly recovered by police and returned to Westminster 6 months later. Many in England were astonished that those who had returned the Stone to Scotland were not prosecuted. However, a prosecution would have caused embarrasment to the Crown. In order to prosecute Ian Hamilton and his colleagues for theft, the Crown would have had to have proven ownnership - something they could hardly do as it was common knowledge that the Stone had been stolen from Scotland by Edward I in 1296.
Did the police recover the Stone of Scone? Perhaps not! In 1986, The Scotsman carried photographs 'supplied by Miss Marjorie S. Brock, who was treasurer of the 1320 Club, no longer in existence'. One photograph was captioned 'The Stone of Destiny, which has been on display in St Columba's Parish Church, Dundee, since June 1972.' The second photograph was of a plaque which read

It seems clearer than ever that English Kings and Queens since Edward I have been sitting on a slab of building stone.

More information on the Stone can be found at Hamish Mitchell's Scots Independence Tour
and Paul Bruce's Stone of Destiny Web Page.