The Taking of the Stone of Destiny

Ian Robertson Hamilton was an unknown law student at Glasgow University until Christmas Eve 1950. On that night, assisted by Alan Stewart, Gavin Vernon and Kay Matheson, he took the Stone of Destiny from beneath the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey and in doing so became a Scottish national hero. In England, however, the act had the opposite effect and a manhunt for the 'vulgar vandals' was started to satisfy the outrage of the English establishment and bring them to justice. In the end, the Stone was given up, but the gang were never charged. This solitary act set Hamilton on a path for the rest of his life from which he has not diverged. Although it is now over sixty years since that fateful night, it is the actual events surrounding the taking of the Stone which hold people spellbound when Hamilton recounts them. In this book, Ian Hamilton has set down the chain of events which led to his decision to go to London, remove the Stone and a minute-by-minute account of the act and the aftermath. For so long the most potent symbol of the authority of the English Crown, the sheer naivety of the act and the casual manner in which it was carried out still take the breath away. But this is not simply a book about a caper which made the news. It is a book about how a nation's conscience was stirred and how a simple symbolic act can change the way people think, act and regard themselves for the rest of their lives.