How the Spoils of an Infamous Heist Traveled the World

Summary

On Christmas morning in 1950, four students who were members of a Scottish nationalist political party carried out a legendary heist. They broke into Westminster Abbey in London and nabbed a 335-pound Medieval relic called the Stone of Scone. This scheme sparked a political border closing and a decades-long mystery, as bits of the stone have remained missing. One archeologist spent years trying to track them down, and has now revealed her findings. The students behind the hefty theft were avenging a theft that transpired six centuries earlier, which has long been viewed as a symbol of Scottish subjugation under England: This block of red sandstone had been used by Scottish rulers in coronation ceremonies sometime during the 13th century, until it was stolen by English troops under the direction of King Edward I in 1296. From then on, the stone became a fixture in British coronation ceremonies.During the mid-20th-century heist, the thieves dropped the Stone of Scone, also known as the Stone of Destiny, onto the floor of Westminster Abbey—and it cracked into two pieces. People involved with this plot crudely repaired the stone before it was returned to authorities in 1951.But not all of the stone made it back. Some bits stayed in Scotland, others were scattered far afield, many of their whereabouts largely unknown until recently. ADVERTISEMENT Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Read more: “The Curse of the Unlucky Mummy”Sally Foster, an archeologist at the University of Stirling in Scotland has been on this case and reports her findings in a new Antiquaries Journal paper on the storied stone. A mastermind behind the stone’s clandestine repair was Robert, or Bertie, Gray. He was a sculptor and politician involved in the movement for self-governance of Scotland, which had unified with England in 1707, disbanding its own parliament in the process to send members to London as part of the new Parliament of Great Britain.In the process of pie...