It originally belonged to the Scottish people who used it during coronation of their own monarchs.
A replica of the Stone of Scone in front of the Scone Palace.
However, rioting crowds prevented the stone from being removed from Westminster Abbey.
His partners in crime were fellow students Gavin Vernon, Kay Matheson and Alan Stuart.
The following night, they tried again, breaking into the abbey with the help of a jemmy.
Hamilton, Vernon and Stuart got inside, while Kay waited in the car outside.
I felt sorry, for it did not belong to us, he wrote.
The Coronation Chair with the Stone of Scone underneath it.
Credit:Wikimedia
But the chair wasnt the only thing the looters broke.
The stone itself split into two.
The Westminster Abbey was bombed in June 1914 when the church was full of visitors.
The bomb exploded right next to the Coronation chair, damaging the chair and breaking the Stone in half.
At that time, the damage was not discovered.
When Hamilton and his friends pulled the Stone out of its place, the pieces separated.
Hamilton picked up the smaller piece, weighing about 50 kg, and ran outside to Kay’s car.
Hamilton placed the smaller piece on the cars back seat and threw a coat over it.
No sooner the door was closed, a policeman emerged on the scene.
It was a strange situation in which we found ourselves, yet neither of us felt perturbed.
The policeman peered into the back seat and found the couple in a lovers clinch.
Having shared some jokes, the policeman bid farewell and the duo drove off.
The Coronation Chair after the theft of the Stone of Scone.
Then went to a wood near Rochester and buried the larger section of the stone.
Mathieson went to Birmingham and hid the smaller section of the stone at her friend’s house.
She then took a train back to Scotland.
The rest of the conspirators also returned back to Scotland.
A team of detectives from Scotland Yard was sent north to investigate.
Later, a stonemason reunited the two sections of the broken stone.
Left to right: Alan Stuart, Kay Matheson, Ian Hamilton and Gavin Vernon.
The police eventually tracked the perpetrators down, but no charges were pressed.
After a few months, the Scottish Covenant Association decided the stone should be returned.
The heist had served its purpose of publicizing the cause of Scottish home rule.
The police was tipped off of its location, and the stone was found.
In April 1951, the stone was taken back to London and returned to Westminster Abbey.
It can now be seen at Edinburgh Castle.
Hamilton went on to have a successful career in criminal law.
He died in 2022.
She died in 2013.
Gavin Vernon graduated in electrical engineering and emigrated to Canada in the 1960s.
He died in March 2004.
Alan Stuart had a successful business career in Glasgow and died in 2019.
Removal of the Stone of Scone from the Abbey of Arbroath.
