The heist of the century
On Christmas Day 1950, four Scottish students from the University of Glasgow carried out one of the most audacious acts of political theatre in British history. Ian Hamilton, Gavin Vernon, Kay Matheson, and Alan Stuart broke into Westminster Abbey and removed the Stone of Destiny — the ancient coronation stone of Scottish kings — from beneath the Coronation Chair where it had sat since Edward I stole it from Scone in 1296.
The operation was chaotic and improvised. The students drove south from Glasgow in two borrowed cars. They broke into the Abbey through a side door in the early hours of Christmas morning. When they tried to lift the stone, it broke into two pieces — it weighed over 300 pounds. They managed to get the larger piece into one car and hide the smaller piece nearby, returning for it later. One car broke down during the getaway. A suspicious policeman nearly caught them. The escape was a comedy of near-disasters.
The stone was spirited north to Scotland, where it was hidden by a network of sympathisers while the largest police search in British history tried to find it. The stone was repaired by a Glasgow stonemason, Robert Gray, and eventually deposited at Arbroath Abbey — symbolically, the site of the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath. It was recovered by police in April 1951 and returned to Westminster. No one was prosecuted — the authorities feared that a trial would only generate more publicity for the Scottish nationalist cause.
The Stone of Destiny was officially returned to Scotland in 1996, 700 years after Edward I had taken it. It is now displayed in Edinburgh Castle alongside the Scottish Crown Jewels, with the agreement that it would be temporarily returned to Westminster for coronations. The 1950 heist did not achieve independence, but it captured the imagination of Scotland and demonstrated that the desire for self-determination had not diminished. Ian Hamilton's account, The Taking of the Stone of Destiny, remains one of the most entertaining books in Scottish political history.