Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 13 on 25/3/2004.

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At the heart of Scottish history

Scone Palace has a long link to Scottish monarchy. Charles Douglas reports

The name of Scone resonates in Scotland’s history, associated as it is with the Stone of Destiny upon which monarchs in Scotland and England have been crowned for more than 1000 years.

It was to Scone that the stone was brought in the ninth century by King Kenneth McAlpin, who had conquered the Pictish nation, and from that moment onward, Scotland was ruled by a king of the Picts and Scots.

But the stone, traditionally held to be the Lia-fail, the very stone upon which the biblical Jacob rested his head the night he struggled with the Angel at Bethel, was considered too great a prize.

In 1296, the invading English King Edward I had it removed to Westminster Abbey in London where it remained until St Andrews Day 1996, when it was dramatically returned to Scotland and placed for safekeeping in Edinburgh Castle.

As early as the sixth century there were holy men living on Scone’s Moot Hill – first the Culdees, an ancient group of monks who lived in cells, then Augustinian monks, who built a monastery there.

This was sacked and burned in 1559 after John Knox, Scotland’s great religious reformer, preached a sermon in nearby Perth. The Abbot’s House, which survives to this day, forms the main part of the Palace of Scone which can be seen to this day.

For a short time the estate was owned by the Gowrie Family, but in 1604, King James VI granted the lands and Palace to Sir David Murray who had saved the King’s life during the Gowrie’s conspiracy to murder him.

He created Sir Da.....

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By Charles Douglas

Section : Historic Houses

Page number : 16