Abduction of the Honours

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The Scottish regalia was appropriated by the Anglo-Norman Conquerors of Britain. Walter de Conventry wrote in 1212:

The more recent kings of Scots profess themselves to be rather Frenchmen, both in race and manners, language and culture; and after reducing the Scots to utter servitude they admit only Frenchmen to their friendship and service.

At that time Scotland was racially made up of: Angles, Normans, Gallovidians, Picts, Scots or Gaels, Norse, and Strathclyde Britons. By 1320 the Scottish kings were appealing to the Pope for recognition of Scotland as a nation (Declaration of Arbroath) and all of these racial groups became united under the word Scots. (1)

Wintoun’s Chronicle recounts that when Edward I, the Hammer of the Scots, became King of England he stripped John Balliol of all his emblems of royalty at Montrose. He carried off the sceptre, sword, crown, ring, and Stone of Destiny to England in 1296.

In 1651 the Crown and Sceptre were hidden under a flagstone in front of the pulpit of Dunottar Castle and the Sword was concealed in the ground at the west end. According to Sir Walter Scott’s Description of the Regalia of Scotland, the Dowager Countess of Marischal lied to Cromwell under questioning and said that her son had carried the Honours abroad. They were restored with the new king and locked in a chest in the Crown room of Edinburgh castle until 1817. They were removed from the chest by King George IV and are on view today in the Crown room.. (1)