Coronation
The following is an edited article featuring the Stone of Scone taken from the BBC. Note that the author misses the Jeremiah connection.
Westminster Abbey is one of the most famous religious buildings in the world and one of London’s key tourist sites. Built by Edward the Confessor in 1040, it has been the site of royal coronations since 1066. Anyone who watched the late Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral will have seen its elegant gothic exterior and magnificent vaulted ceilings, while visitors will have walked by the graves and memorials of illustrious artists and writers, including Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Shakespeare and the Bronte sisters.
And this year, in the run up to the coronation of Britain’s latest king, Charles III, visitors are paying particular attention to the Coronation Chair, the seat on which English monarchs have been crowned since 1308.
Despite its age, the chair is only part of the coronation story. Underneath the seat is a wooden platform. This was designed by King Edward I to house the Coronation Stone, a sacred rock with mysterious origins that he brought from Scotland in 1296.
The platform is currently empty – but before the coronation on 6 May, the stone will be brought from Edinburgh Castle (where it’s housed alongside the Scottish Crown Jewels) to the Abbey when Charles III is crowned King of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The Coronation Stone – also known as the Stone of Scone or Stone of Destiny – is an ancient symbol of Scottish sovereignty with links to Ireland and Spain, stolen by the English and even associated with biblical lore.
However, while it has a long (and controversial) history, it actually looks like a fairly unremarkable rock: a rectangular slab of pinkish sandstone the size of a small suitcase that weighs around 152 kg. Its only decoration is a roughly incised cross. At each end, iron rings are fitted. No one is quite sure when they were attached or whether their purpose was to make the stone easier to move or to chain it in place. And that’s just one of many mysteries surrounding the stone.
According to legend, it was the same stone used by the biblical figure Jacob (the father of the Israelites) as a pillow in Bethel when he dreamed of a ladder reaching to heaven. From here, one of Jacob’s sons is said to have taken it to Egypt, from where it travelled to Spain and later to Ireland when the Spanish king’s son, Simon Brech, invaded the island in 700 BCE.
Whatever the truth, we know that the stone was taken to Scone Abbey in Perthshire after Kenneth I – who united the Scots and Pictish kingdoms and is known as the first King of Scotland – moved his capital from Western Scotland to Scone in around 840 CE. This “Stone of Destiny” was used for centuries in the coronation ceremonies of Scottish monarchs.
But following his victory at the Battle of Dunbar in 1296, England’s King Edward I marched north, seized the stone from Scone Abbey and had it fitted into the base of a specially crafted wooden Coronation Chair on which English – and later British – monarchs have been crowned inside London’s Westminster Abbey ever since.
This same procedure will be repeated later this year, when the stone is brought to London for the crowning of King Charles. Once the stone is laid under the Coronation Chair, they will be moved from their place by the West Door to the Coronation Theatre, an area in the middle of Westminster Abbey at the centre of the lines of the cross on which the abbey is constructed. Historically this area was decorated with bright wall paintings. Today its most striking feature is a bold medieval mosaic floor known as the Cosmati pavement.
“Here the king will be anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury,” said King. “For this private part of the ceremony, a canopy is placed over the chair by four Knights of the Garter. The then-king will be handed the Sword of Offering (which he hands back) and then the Sovereign Sceptre and Golden Orb before he is finally crowned with Edward’s Crown.”
These items of coronation regalia are the heart of the Crown Jewels collection on display at the Tower of London. But current visitors to the Tower will not see quite as much as usual. The crown is being resized to fit King Charles III, and many other items will be borrowed to be worn by other members of the royal family.
But while these ancient buildings and artefacts are a magnet for tourists to the UK, the coronation will serve as a reminder of their history – a history that is entwined with that of the British Isles, and perhaps even the ancient father of the Israelites.
We understand that the history of anointing the king goes back to the time of Solomon. “Then Zadok the priest took a horn of oil from the tabernacle and anointed Solomon. And they blew the horn, and all the people said, ‘Long live King Solomon!’” (1 Kings 1:39). Of all nations that crown kings, the British monarch is the only one anointed when crowned.
Will the coronation of King Charles III be the last coronation before Christ assumes the throne of David? “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David” (Luke 1:32).
Brian Orchard
