Humza Yousaf has a ‘personal responsibility’ to ensure SNP hands back missing part of Stone of Scone
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Humza Yousaf should ensure the SNP hands back a missing fragment of the Stone of Scone given to Alex Salmond more than 15 years ago, the chairman of the artefact’s new home has said.
Lord Kinnoull said the piece was the property of the Crown and should be displayed alongside the rest of the stone at the new £26.5 million Perth Museum, which opens this spring.
He told The Telegraph that the First Minister has a personal responsibility to ensure the fragment’s return as Mr Yousaf is one of the Commissioners for the Safeguarding of the Regalia, who are charged with ensuring the stone’s security.
It emerged nearly a fortnight ago that the fragment had turned up in a cupboard in the SNP’s headquarters but he said he was not aware of the party contacting the museum, despite calls for them to do so.
The crossbench peer’s intervention piles pressure on the Nationalists to hand over the fragment as he chairs Culture Perth and Kinross, the charitable trust that oversees the new museum.
Although the SNP has confirmed it has a “small stone chip” in storage that is claimed to come from the Stone of Scone, the party has refused to say whether it intends to return the piece.
Scottish cabinet papers from 2008, published earlier this month, disclosed that Mr Salmond was given the fragment by Prof Sir Neil MacCormick, whose father helped finance the stone’s theft from Westminster Abbey in 1950.
Also known as the Stone of Destiny, the kings and queens of Scotland were traditionally crowned on it.
It was temporarily moved from Edinburgh Castle to Westminster Abbey last May for the coronation of King Charles III.
Mr Salmond told the Telegraph he did not have the fragment and could not recall what had happened to it. He thought it had been put in a Scottish Government “Aladdin’s Cave” cupboard for gifts.
But the former First Minister later said he had handed over the fragment to the SNP for safe keeping and it had since “turned up in SNP HQ”. The party confirmed this.
Lord Kinnoull said: “It would seem to me that the fragment belongs to the Crown. When the bits were chipped off, they continued to belong to the Crown as well.
“I cannot quite see how anyone else can claim to own these things unless the Crown has abandoned them, which would seem unlikely”.
The peer, who is the 16th Earl of Kinnoull, added: “The SNP has not been in touch with the Perth Museum since disclosing the fragment was in a cupboard at the party’s headquarters. I feel strongly that it makes sense for the whole of the stone to be in one place.”
He noted that, as Mr Yousaf is one of the Commissioners for the Regalia of Scotland “it would seem under the Royal Warrant he and the other Commissioners would have a duty to look into this.”
Lord Kinnoull said the Perth Museum had the “highest level of security”, before concluding: “I have no knowledge of the security arrangements the fragment currently enjoys in its cupboard but the Commissioners take security rightly very seriously, and good security is expensive.”
For centuries, the 150kg stone was kept at the now ruined Scone Abbey near Perth where it was used as the seat for the inauguration of Scotland’s ancient kings.
In 1296, the English King Edward I seized it as spoils in the Wars of Independence and incorporated it into the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey. It has been used in the coronation ceremonies for every British monarch since.
The stone made headlines on Christmas Day 1950, when four Scottish nationalist students removed it from the abbey, breaking it in two in the process.
They were bankrolled and advised by John MacCormick, who helped found the SNP and was rector of Glasgow University at the time. He reportedly gave the students £50 to help them and signed a note testifying to the stone’s authenticity.
After being stuck back together, it was found three months later at the high altar of Arbroath Abbey.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean arranged the return of the stone to Scotland in 1996 when he was Scottish Secretary and it was put on display at Edinburgh Castle.
It is scheduled to return to Perthshire for the first time in more than 700 years this spring, when it will be moved to the new museum, which has been funded by the UK Government and the local council.
The SNP was approached for comment.
