The Stone of Scone, also known as the Stone of Destiny, is seen as of huge significance to Scotland's nationhood. It was the seat on which generations of Kings of Scotland, and perhaps Kings of Dalriada before them, were crowned.
Until 1296 it was housed at Scone Abbey, where the coronations of Kings of Scotland took place: the last being of John Balliol. But Edward I of England stripped Scotland of all emblems of nationhood in 1296, and took the Stone of Destiny to a new home in Westminster Abbey. For the next 700 years it was to be housed in a specially-built coronation chair, on which Kings and Queens of England, then of Britain, were crowned.
The legend of the Stone of Destiny goes back over 3000 years. It is said that Ramses II of Egypt had a daughter called Scota. After the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, Princess Scota left Egypt and roamed the middle east for over a thousand years looking for her own promised land. Later she wandered further afield, crossing Spain en route to Ireland. Eventually, from the north coast of Ireland, she saw what she had been seeking for so long: what would later become Scotland. The Scots and the Picts, one version of the legend continues, were both the descendents of Princess Scota and her consort, Gathelos, a Prince of Scythia (part of modern Iran).
When Scota arrived in Scotland, the story continues, she had in her luggage a block of sandstone weighing 152kg. This had been used as a pillow by Jacob when he had the dream reported in Genesis about Jacob's Ladder. The Stone of Destiny, as it became known, was first located at Dunadd during the time of Dalriada, before being moved to Scone by King Kenneth I.
Until Christmas Day, 1950, the Stone of Destiny remained where it had been placed by Edward I, in Westminster Abbey. Four students from Glasgow University broke into Westminster Abbey in the early hours of the morning and removed the stone, accidentally breaking it in two as they did so. The stone was subsequently repaired by a Glasgow stonemason before being hidden in a tractor repair shed a Firemore, north of Inverasdale in Wester Ross.
But it was becoming clear that public opinion in Scotland was not as overwhelmingly in favour of the removal of the Stone of Destiny as the perpetrators had hoped. So on 11 August 1951 the Stone of Destiny was left, covered in a Saltire, at the altar in the ruins of Arbroath Abbey. It was returned to a repaired Coronation Chair in good time for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II (who ought to be know north of the Border as Queen Elizabeth I of Scotland: the first Queen Elizabeth was not Queen of Scotland) in 1953.
On 15 November 1996, as a result of an initiative by the Conservative Prime Minister John Major, the Stone of Destiny returned to Scotland once more, this time under military escort as it crossed the River Tweed at Coldstream. In now lives alongside the Honours of Scotland in Edinburgh Castle, though it will be returned to Westminster Abbey when needed for Coronations. Many saw this as a political ploy to resurrect the Conservatives' failing support in Scotland. It didn't work: the 1997 General Election saw the Conservative Party emerge without a single Scottish seat in Parliament.
Rumours persist about the Stone of Destiny. Some say that monks at Scone Abbey switched the stone and that what Edward I took to England was not the real Stone of Destiny. Others claim that those who stole the stone on Christmas Day 1950 switched the stone, and that what was returned on April 1951 was not the original: which was instead hidden in a peat bank in Wester Ross. As with everything else to do with the Stone of Destiny, the importance of the symbolism surrounding it far outweighs the block of sandstone itself, all 152kg of it.
Thanks for the info. I note the article says that Princess Scota brought the stone of destiny to Scotland, but it didn’t say how she came to be in possession of it. It still doesn’t answer how something of such obvious significance to Jews would have wound up in the possession of an Egyptian Princess... in Scotland.