"Westminster Stone theory The Westminster Stone theory refers to the belief held by some historians and scholars that the stone which traditionally rests under the Coronation Chair is not the true Stone of Destiny but a 13th-century substitute. Since the chair has been located in Westminster Abbey since that time, adherents to this theory have created the title 'Westminster Stone' to avoid confusion with the 'real' stone (sometimes referred to as the Stone of Scone). One of the most vocal proponents of this theory was writer and historian Nigel Tranter, who consistently presented the theory throughout his non-fiction books and"
"strong arguments against the theory. On Christmas Day 1950, the Westminster Stone was taken from the abbey by four Scottish students. It remained hidden until April 1951, when a stone was left in Arbroath Abbey. Some speculate that this stone is not the one taken from the Abbey, but merely a copy. The stone left in Arbroath was damaged, for the Westminster Stone had broken in half when removed from the Coronation Chair, but had been repaired by Glasgow stonemason Robert Gray. However, Gray had made replicas of the Stone in the 1930s, and further fuelled speculation by declaring later"
"of the stone do not match the present stone. In The Treaty of Northampton 1328, between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England, England agreed to return the captured stone to Scotland; riotous crowds prevented it from being removed from Westminster Abbey. The stone remained in England for another six centuries, even after James VI of Scotland assumed the English throne as James I of England. For the next century, the Stuart kings and queens of Scotland once again sat on the stone but at their coronation as kings and queens of England. On Christmas Day 1950, a"
"England, and the second during World War II when it was moved to Gloucester Cathedral for the duration of the war. On Christmas Day 1950, Scottish Nationalists broke into the abbey and removed the Stone of Destiny. It was recovered in time for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953. Since 1996, the stone has been kept at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland on the proviso that it be returned to England for use at coronations. The Coronation Chair is highly protected, and leaves its secure location—on a plinth in St George's Chapel in the nave—only when it is carried into the"
"of the Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association and the Scottish Covenant Association. He was also the campaign manager for the successful bid to have John MacCormick elected Rector of the University. On Christmas Eve 1950, Hamilton, along with three other student Scottish nationalists, removed the Stone of Destiny from its place under the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey, London. Originally used for the coronation of Scottish monarchs, the Stone had been removed to England by Edward I in 1296 to bolster his claim to the throne of Scotland. After the Acts of Union 1707 between Scotland and England, it was"
"1952. The police conducted an investigation with specific focus on Scotland. All four of the group were interviewed and all later confessed to their involvement with the exception of Ian Hamilton. The authorities decided not to prosecute as the potential for the event to become politicised was far too great. Sir Hartley Shawcross, addressing Parliament on the matter, said: ""The clandestine removal of the Stone from Westminster Abbey, and the manifest disregard for the sanctity of the abbey, were vulgar acts of vandalism which have caused great distress and offence both in England and Scotland. I do not think, however,"
"new party. He stood for the SNP in Dunbartonshire at the 1935 general election and a 1936 by-election in the seat, although he received less than 10% of the vote on each occasion. Disillusioned with the SNP, Gray joined the Progressives, an anti-Labour coalition, and in 1947 was elected to Glasgow City Council, representing Blythswood. Gray retained his nationalist beliefs. In 1950, the Stone of Scone was removed from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalist activists. It was damaged in the process, and MacCormick, who had been involved in the plot, delivered it to Gray's stonemason business, where he arranged for"
"of the Covenant Association was the removal of the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey by four of their members (Ian Hamilton, Kay Matheson, Gavin Vernon and Alan Stuart) over Christmas in 1950. This famous act attracted huge publicity for the cause of Scottish home rule. Fraser's parents house in Carlisle, where he was staying, was used as a base for some of those organising the transport of the stone across the border into Scotland. Fraser was chairman of the Scottish League of Young Liberals. He was elected president of the Glasgow University Union for the 1952–53 academic year. Once"
"of Scone from Westminster Abbey in London and return it to Scotland. The plan was funded by a Glasgow businessman, Robert Gray, who was a councillor on the Glasgow Corporation. Vernon agreed to participate in the plan along with Kay Matheson and Alan Stuart who were also students in Glasgow. By removing the Stone the group hoped to promote their cause for Scottish devolution and to reawaken a sense of national identity amongst the Scottish people. In December 1950, a few days before Christmas, the four students from Glasgow drove to London in two Ford Anglias, a journey which took"
"Ian Hamilton (advocate) Ian Robertson Hamilton, QC (born 13 September 1925) is a lawyer and Scottish Nationalist. He is best known for his part in the removal of the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey in 1950. Hamilton was born in Paisley, Scotland on 13 September 1925, the son of a tailor. He attended the John Neilson Institution in Paisley before going on to the University of Glasgow to study law, after having served in the British army. It was at University where Hamilton became politically active. A participant in debates at the Glasgow University Union, he was a member"
"I of England (Longshanks) in 1296 during the struggles against English invasion, which historians call the Scottish Wars of Independence as a spoil of war, kept in Westminster Abbey in London and fitted into King Edward's Chair. Subsequent English and then British monarchs were crowned sitting upon the chair and Stone. At the time, the Stone was viewed as a symbol of Scottish nationhood; by removing the Stone to London, Edward I was declaring himself 'King of the Scots'. In 1950, Ian Hamilton, a student at the University of Glasgow, approached Gavin Vernon with a plan to remove the Stone"
"of its members (including Ian Hamilton who would later become a well known Queen's Counsel) took the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1950. This caused a huge scandal amongst the British establishment and it wasn't until April 1951 that the stone was found by the authorities. GUSNA has, almost since its inception, tried to play an active part in the life of Glasgow University with its members regularly being involved in the Students' Representative Council as well as regularly nominating candidates for the election of the Rectorship of the university. Notable GUSNA Rectorial candidates of the"
"5 June 1972. A bronze plaque on the sloping top of the casing, dating from 1962, read: This is a fragment of the original piece of limestone once securely fixed in the ground now fronting Cannon Street Station. Removed in 1742 to the north side of the street, in 1798 it was built into the south wall of the Church of St. Swithun London Stone which stood here until demolished in 1962. Its origin and purpose are unknown but in 1188 there was a reference to Henry, son of Eylwin de Lundenstane, subsequently Lord Mayor of London. When London Stone"
"Victoria's wedding ceremony had been to wear colorful gowns. A woodcut of the British Royal family with their tree at Windsor Castle was copied in ""Godey's"" at Christmas 1850. The engraving was based on an image of Queen Victoria and her decorated Christmas tree previously published in the ""Illustrated London News"" in December 1848. The ""Godey's"" version removed Victoria's tiara and Prince Albert's mustache to remake the engraving into an American scene. It was the first widely circulated picture of a decorated evergreen Christmas tree in America, and Art historian Karal Ann Marling called Prince Albert and Queen Victoria shorn"
"Declaration of Scottish Independence believed to have been drafted by Abbot Bernard, who was the Chancellor of Scotland under King Robert I. The Abbey fell into ruin after the Reformation. From 1590 onward, its stones were raided for buildings in the town of Arbroath. This continued until 1815 when steps were taken to preserve the remaining ruins. On Christmas Day 1950, the Stone of Destiny was stolen from Westminster Abbey. On April 11, 1951, the missing stone was found lying on the site of the Abbey's altar. Since 1947, a major historical re-enactment commemorating the Declaration's signing has been held"
"the Church of Scotland. Once the London police were informed of its whereabouts, the stone was returned to Westminster four months after it had been removed. Afterwards, rumours circulated that copies had been made of the stone, and that the returned stone was not the original. In 1996, in a symbolic response to growing dissatisfaction among Scots at the prevailing constitutional settlement, the British Government decided that the stone should be kept in Scotland when not in use at coronations. On 3 July 1996, it was announced in the House of Commons that the stone would be returned to Scotland,"
"in Britain, and has appeared in written texts since the medieval period. A flowering sprig is sent to the British Monarch every Christmas. The original tree has been propagated several times, with one tree growing at Glastonbury Abbey and another in the churchyard of the Church of St John. The ""original"" Glastonbury thorn was cut down and burned as a relic of superstition during the English Civil War, and one planted on Wearyall Hill in 1951 to replace it had its branches cut off in 2010. According to legend, Joseph of Arimathea visited Glastonbury with the Holy Grail and thrust"
"although there is no archaeological evidence to support it. Camden's identification has been revived by John Michell in his book ""The Sacred Centre"" (2009), where he identifies the stone as the London ""terminus"", a stone sacred to Jupiter that stood at the centre of every Roman city, and which parallels the golden milestone in the Forum in Rome. He believes it was at the intersection of the major axes of the Roman city, the north south ""Cardo Maximus"" and the east west ""Decumanus"". Alternatively, writers in the 18th century speculated that the Stone was prehistoric and had been an object"
"it has been destroyed"", ""The Guardian"" reported in early June 2015, ""but even Miliband's close advisers cannot confirm its fate."" In January 2016 two party officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Bloomberg News that the stone had been destroyed in the weeks following 7 May 2015, putting an end to eight months of speculation about its whereabouts. In May 2017, it was revealed that the EdStone had become a decoration in the Ivy Chelsea Garden restaurant on King's Road in West London. The restaurant's owners said that it had been bought two years earlier in a charity auction because"
"the choir; meanwhile, the ""crimson robe"" is removed, and the sovereign proceeds to the Coronation Chair for the anointing, which has been set in a prominent position, wearing the ""anointing gown"". In 1953, the chair stood atop a dais of several steps. This mediaeval chair has a cavity in the base into which the Stone of Scone is fitted for the ceremony. Also known as the ""Stone of Destiny"", it was used for ancient Scottish coronations until brought to England by Edward I. It has been used for every coronation at Westminster Abbey since. Until 1996, the stone was kept"
"would it be as modern as the works of Jacob Epstein, a statement somewhat at odds with the design that was finally realised after his death. In 1933, after the urn containing the bones of King Edward V and Richard, Duke of York was removed from Westminster Abbey for examination and then returned with an Anglican burial service, Archbishop Downey said, ""It is difficult to see what moral justification there can be for reading a Protestant service over the remains of these Roman Catholic princes, even though it were done on the plea of legal continuity of the present Anglican"
"the stone were: Miliband had pledged that if Labour won the election the stone was to have stood in the Downing Street Rose Garden ""as a reminder of our duty to keep Labour's promises"". The stone became a source of near universal ridicule. It was unfavourably compared to the stone tablets in the story of Moses and the Ten Commandments, and to a cemetery headstone. In a matter of hours Twitter users had declared it the ""EdStone"". Then Mayor of London Boris Johnson called it ""some weird commie slab"", whilst shadow transport minister Michael Dugher later admitted it was a"
"Jane Seymour, the falcon of York, the black bull of Clarence, the yale of Beaufort, the white lion of Mortimer, the greyhound of Richmond, the white hart of Richard II, the collared silver antelope of Bohun, the black dragon of Ulster, the white swan of Hereford, the unicorn of Edward III and the golden hind of Kent. The original beasts dated from the sixteenth century, but were removed in 1682 on the advice of Sir Christopher Wren. Wren had condemned the Reigate stone, the calcareous sandstone of which they were constructed. The present statues date from 1925, when the chapel"
"was, ironically, Edward I – recovered the two pieces of stone and brought them to Glasgow. They hired a stonemason, Baillie Robert Gray, to mend the Stone. Gray placed a brass rod inside the Stone containing a piece of paper. To this day, nobody knows what was written on the piece of paper. In April 1951 the police received a tip-off and the Stone was found on the site of the High Altar at Arbroath Abbey where in 1320 the assertion of Scottish nationhood was made in the Declaration of Arbroath. The Stone was returned to Westminster Abbey in February"
"Saint Margaret's Black Rood relic, but to confiscate an object so precious to the Scots, and so symbolic of their independence, would be a final humiliation. He carried it back to Westminster Abbey. By placing it within the throne of England, he had a potent symbol of his claim for overlordship. It is this stone which sat in Westminster until 1996, when it was returned to Scotland. According to the Westminster Stone theory, the stone Edward removed was not the real Stone of Destiny, but a substitute. The English army was at the Scottish border in mid-March, 1296, and did"
"Altar Stone (Stonehenge) The Altar Stone is a recumbent central megalith at Stonehenge in England, dating to Stonehenge phase 3i, around 2600 BC. It is made of a purplish-green micaceous sandstone and is thought to have originated from outcrops of the Senni Beds formation of the Old Red Sandstone in Wales, though this is currently in debate. Stone 80 (Altar Stone) was most recently excavated in the 1950s, but no written records of the excavation survive, and there are no samples available for examination that are established as having come from the monolith. Stone 55 (a sarsen megalith) lies on"
"the parish. The stone originated in Derbyshire, and was deposited by the retreat of glaciers at the end of the last ice age. Oliver Cromwell is said to have used the stone as a podium during an attack on the village church during the English civil war. Local tradition holds that the stone is the petrified foot of the devil. In March 2016, the stone was hit by a motorist who made complaints of it being a hazard, prompting the county council to investigate its removal. The parish council and villagers strongly opposed its removal and the stone still remains"
"Affairs Officer, unknown to him, before it was removed. Although English, Josselyn, who was then a student at the University of Glasgow, was a Scottish Nationalist. Edward I was Josselyn's 21st great-grandfather. The smaller piece was similarly brought north at a later time. The entire stone was passed to a senior Glasgow politician, who arranged for it to be professionally repaired by Glasgow stonemason Robert Gray. A major search for the stone was ordered by the British Government, but proved unsuccessful. The custodians left the stone on the altar of Arbroath Abbey on 11 April 1951, in the safekeeping of"
"removed. The curse was pronounced on the Border Reivers by the Archbishop of Glasgow and was inscribed on a stone as part of the city's millennium celebrations. Subsequently, some Carlisle residents blamed disasters, such as an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, flooding and the relegation of the local football team from its league on the presence of the stone. Dow stated that ""The original curse was not a godly act. For this reason I have always said that it would be better if the stone were not there"" and said he intended to ask the current Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti,"
"hands, was purchased by the British Museum in 1855. Saint-Denis Crystal The Saint-Denis Crystal or ""Cristal de Saint-Denis"" is a Caroligian engraved gem depicting the crucifixion of Christ, that was originally held in the treasury of the Abbey of Saint-Denis in France. During the French Revolution many pieces in the Abbey's treasure were either broken up and destroyed or sold - the Saint Denis Crystal eventually made its way to the British Museum in London, where it resides to this day. The Saint-Denis Crystal is one of 20 or so engraved intaglios of rock crystal to survive from the Middle"
"in the removal of the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1950 and its return to Arbroath Abbey. He also mounted a legal challenge, MacCormick v. Lord Advocate, over the right of Queen Elizabeth using the title ""Queen Elizabeth II"", on grounds that there had been no previous Scottish Queen Elizabeth. In 1955 MacCormick had a book detailing his activities in the home rule movement published, entitled ""The Flag in the Wind"". His last attempt to enter parliament came at the 1959 General Election, when he stood for the Liberal Party at Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles, again"
"the Royal throne of England at Westminster. Stone of Jacob The Stone of Jacob appears in the Book of Genesis as the stone used as a pillow by the Israelite patriarch Jacob at the place later called Bet-El. As Jacob had a vision in his sleep, he then consecrated the stone to God. More recently, the stone has been claimed by Scottish folklore and British Israelism. According to account given in Genesis (Chapter 28:10-22), Jacob was fleeing from his elder twin brother Esau, whom he had tricked out of receiving their father Isaac's blessing of the first-born. On his flight,"
"of buildings, bridges, and roads. It was removed from the wall in the 19th century on orders from King Karl XV and moved to a park at Drottningholm Palace. The runestone was returned to the church in 1952. Runic inscription U 48 contains runic text within a serpent that is beneath a cross. It is classified as being carved in runestone style Pr4, which is also known as Urnes style. The stone is 1.75 meters in height and is grey gneiss. A portion of one side of the runestone has broken off and this part of the inscription is missing."