Listen to the episode here.

Life is weird and seemingly anachronistic from time to time, and so are the stories that make up our history.

Theresa starts with one such story, sharing the story of John Batman, the founding father of Melbourne, Australia. She relishes getting to expose the dirt on this man, his syphilis, the fact that he originally named Melbourne, “Batmania,” and was carried around in a wicker batmobile. Just know if she ever tells a story about a founding father, it will always go like this.

Meanwhile, Angie tells a wildly different tale, and she shares the 1950s heist of the Stone of Destiny, or that time a group of Scottish college students broke into Westminster Abby and stole the rock upon which all Scottish kings were crowned since 1249.

This story pairs well with:
Ona Judge
Irish Crown Jewel Heist

Transcript

Theresa: Hello and welcome to the Unhinged History Podcast. The podcast where two frenemies join forces, tell each other the stories we’ve only recently heard, and insult the other one by telling them things they may not have wanted to know. Uh we’re going to insult listeners as well, particularly if I’ve got one that’s going to insult listeners as well. 

And uh yeah, then we’re going to sit back and wait for that blessed comment section to fill with vitriol, and we’re gonna laugh and laugh. I didn’t know we were frenemies. 

Angie: Is it because I would saran wrap you inside your own house? You know, I have a honestly, I feel like you would like that. 

Theresa: I yeah, it would be like a weighted blanket. But like I have I have a saran wrap story. Well, I’m not shocked. Okay. So this intro is going to give you pause and questions. Back when I worked at Boy Scout Camp. I’ll wait. Yep. Um the I figured out very quickly that the cook is the person you don’t piss off. 

Angie: That should be common knowledge in every situation. 

Theresa: Don’t cook my own. So the cook, Gabe, he had been at this camp for years and years and years, and before he worked at this camp, he was a ki a camper himself at this Boy Scout camp. 

Okay. So Gabe knew this place inside and out. And there was the year before I started working there, there was this counselor name his nickname, I think it was I’m not gonna say his nickname, just in case he listens, I doubt it. But anyhow, he annoyed him. 

Angie: Is he in Vermont? Because if he’s in Vermont, he’s never gonna listen here. 

Theresa: No, he’s not in Vermont. Thankfully, no. Um, but anyhow, this dude just annoyed everybody to no end. Well, one day, uh the can the the count other counselors were fed up of his shit. Can’t remember what set it off. They didn’t tell me that part or I forgot it. It was 20 years ago. 

Shit, it was 20 years ago. Anyhow, um they waited until dude went to sleep. Now the cabins for the counselors were big enough for two twin beds side by side with one nightstand the middle. Okay, so like a small hotel room. Yeah, like yeah, like yeah, Uber small. 

Funks. So the cook, the cook, being the cook, gave the counselor saran wrap and said, I’ll watch. Not gonna be involved. 

So they saran wrap bro to his bed. Okay. Good. And he was just kind of like, okay, fine, this is tomorrow’s problems, I guess. And so they wait for him to go back to sleep. Well, I say they wait. They take a bag of Doritos, they rip it open, and they dump it in between the space of the two beds, like that only walkway. They prop the door open and they go wait in the cabin directly across. 

And early morning, one, two AM. We have our boy, the camp bear that came through town. I think the bear’s name is Amadeus. 

Love that. So Amadeus comes in smelling the Doritos, because we’re not supposed to have any food in the in the things because bears, right? Amadeus comes in, crashes down as he does the bed shift. This dude sits up in his bed and has to sit a bear quietly as Amadeus crunches the Dorito trying not to wet his sleeping bag. 

Angie: Can we just appreciate Amadeus for being an unwilling or unknowing participant in this and all the boy wants is snack? Yeah. 

Theresa: And he got up from his midnight snack, ventured out, no harm, no foul, and everyone else was like, I think we’re done tormenting him now. I think we’ve done it. Yeah. Anyway, I love Amadeus. He’s my BFF now. 

Angie: Also, I was gonna have questions, but I decided that the only question about this whole thing that I have is on the timeline of Teresa’s life, where does being a Boy Scout camp counselor fit? 

Theresa: Um it was immediately uh during the time that I tore my ACL by jump kick a guy who’s six five in the face and landing wrong. So post-high school? 

Angie: Post-high school. Immediately after high school. Perfect. Thank you for that. Thank you for clearing that up for my brain. Yeah, you’re welcome. I do what I can. I’ve been building a mental timeline of your life since we met, and I’m just like, where does this fit? 

Theresa: Yeah, you’re not alone. I feel like others who know me and here’s my tales, they they do the same. 

Angie: Listen, I just know that your memoir is gonna be amazing. 

Theresa: Yeah, maybe. But hey, I’m gonna sharp pivot. I’ve got a story I’m aching to tell you. And I realize be a spreadsheet, I get to go first. 

Angie: You do. In fact, you get to go first, I think. I don’t know, whatever. Do you linger tooth? You go first. 

Theresa: Actually, that’s last week’s story. Hold on. 

Angie: No, you’re going first. 

Theresa: I’ve decided to I am going first. I just need to make sure I get the right story up. Because I can only tell you the real beauty and the beast at once. Okay. 

Angie: So there is a slack group I’m a part of, and there is another person in there named Stephanie Reed who suggested this story. Okay. Okay. I’m gonna jump in and say, here’s my sources. State Library of Victoria, Batman’s Tragic End, Mean Gin dot com, The Moral Moment by Patrick Stokes. The Batemans, or nope, I’m gonna say the Batmans, by St. John’s Online, written by Michaela Ann Cameron, Bear Brass, Imagining Early Melbourne by Robin Anneer, Australian Geographic on This Day, John Batman’s Birthday by Anne Johnston, and the Dolliff did a podcast of him. Do you know who John Batman is? 

Angie: Off the top of my head, I’m gonna say no based on the name. But I am gonna ask, this isn’t the Batman that scaled building, right? No. 

Theresa: No, he didn’t he didn’t scale a building. 

Angie: I think that was an English Batman, so you’re good. 

Theresa: Um John Batman. I mean, because apparently, according to Reddit Threads, the Americans say it wrong. I’m gonna say it right only this one time. Batman. Uh is content he’s considered to be the founding father of Melbourne or Melbourne. Um and I don’t want to bury that lead. Okay. Okay. I think that makes this story that much more full of I would say whimsy, but I mean I think what the fuck is probably more apropos. You know, whatever. 

So, journey with me. It is 1795, and William Bateman, he’s a 30-year-old cutler and grinder by trade. Our man sharpens knives. Yes, literally cutler. 

Okay. He’s married to a lady named Mary. They started a family. Now, William, maybe he’s struggling financially. Maybe he just wants to be super committed to his role of provider. 

Because he teams up with a group of other small business owners, and they decide that they’re going to engage in some extra curricular activities that will increase wealth. Uh it might be breaking the law, but here we are. 

Angie: Hold on. In Australia? 

Theresa: No, no, this is in England. This is in England. I should have said that. But we we head to England, so the England transition’s coming. 

Angie: This is all coming to light now. 

Theresa: Yeah, yeah. 

Angie: What year is it? Um I know you just said it, but I it literally went one ear written and write up the other. 

Theresa: 1795. 

Angie: 1795. Okay, I thought it was 1895, and I was like, this feels wrong. 

Theresa: No, America’s still wet behind the ears. Right. Okay. Now, he teams up, William Bateman teams up with his brother-in-law, and they’re gonna steal saltpeter, which is a component of gunpowder. 

Okay. Now both men are found guilty as charged because this they are not as smooth as they thought. And the brother and okay, so the brother-in-law and him, they’re sentenced, well, brother-in-law sentenced to 17 years transportation for the stealing, and Bateman is sentenced to 14 years transportation for receiving. 

Angie: What is transportation? Is that being sent to Australia? 

Theresa: Yeah, yeah. That’s that’s getting shipped off. Now, at the time of the conviction, it’s now January 1796. Mary’s already expecting their second child named Robert, who’s gonna arrive in March. Both her brother and her husband are gonna get sent to Aussie land, and she’s not about to be alone. Good her. So she books passage. 

Angie: What? I was gonna say, since she commits a crime too. 

Theresa: She’s like, you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna go rob a bank. I’m gonna get some free three hots and a cot. Here we go. No, that she pays out of pocket for her and the two little ones, because by this point, little baby boys hit the scene. And soon after reaching the colony, William gets sent to Parramatta to work as a convict, and Mary and the children trail after him there. Now, from the earliest years, this European settlement of a town. Most of the convicts like Bateman occupied these modest little huts on this main thoroughfare. It doesn’t sound too glamorous, but you wouldn’t expect four convicts to be living in lavish accommodations. 

Angie: I actually didn’t expect him to have huts. I thought they were just sent there and like told to survive. And that’s how we learned that everything in Australia wants to eat you. 

Theresa: Yeah, I mean, maybe that was for the first couple of years, and then they started to give huts, so they had convicts that actually put in the infrastructure. 

Angie: Oh, okay, yeah, that makes sense. 

Theresa: I mean, I don’t know, trial and error. But apparently, Mary and William love each other very, very much because three and a half years after their arrival, they have a colonial born or currency lad. They named him John. 

John Bateman. Okay. Okay. OK, figure the story. Um it’s around the time that he’s ten years into his fourteen year sentence that Williams Sr. earned I don’t know why I said senior there. 

I guess maybe his dad was also I maybe they had another kid named I don’t know. I I Anyway. I did it for a reason. 

Reasons beyond me. Um William puts in ten of the fourteen years, and they were like, Good enough, bro. So clearly he was a model convict. Now, I will say that he does seem to have a bit of a leg up on the other convicts because he has a supportive wife in this colony, and I guess there’s a severe gender imbalance because they’re mostly shipping off the men. 

And this checks. Yeah, so he decides he’s going to kind of distance himself from his convict past. He drops the E in his name, and so he dro he goes from Bateman to Batman. 

Angie: John, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. 

Theresa: Little did he realize the epic thing that he was gonna do for you right there. 

Angie: Now that I already know what song I’m gonna choose for you. Fantastic. It’s not gonna be that. 

Theresa: Um they start going to church, they start doing the things. Don’t know how much that helps. It is 1821, so we’ve gone forward in time a little bit. There is a young female orphan school apprentice named Elizabeth Richardson who turns up pregnant, and she’s naming baby boy John Batman as the baby’s father. John denies this claim. Now Elizabeth’s age is unknown, uh, but orphan apprentices could have been anywhere from twelve to seventeen while John’s twenty. 

Angie: So either way, this isn’t good. 

Theresa: This is this is problematic at best, and authorities try to get him to pay child support or at least marry her. He fights it. And in the end, they decide he’s gonna need he’s gonna need to pay fifty pounds to the institution, not to her, for expenses. His dad negotiates that down to half the cost. 

Okay. And by And by the end of the year, he and his younger brother Henry departed for Van Diemen’s land. W that’s now Tasmania for those of us playing not in Australia. And then just a little bit time later, January 1827, John Batman wrote the New South Wales governor, Sir Ralph Darling, and he’s asking him for land in Port Phillip. Now, at the time, a little bit of an issue because Darling’s attempting to limit the population of Victoria because of this uncontrollable influx of squatters, so he rejects Batman’s application. Rude. Now, we don’t know when, but at some point, John Batman contracts syphilis. 

Angie: Oh no, syphilis has entered the chat. 

Theresa: He gets formally diagnosed in 1835, and I need to mention that his nose falls off. 

Angie: I forgot that’s a side effect. Mm-hmm. 

Theresa: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, okay. Yep. Can’t figure out the exact time his nose fells off falls off. I tried. I tried. I feel like that would have made this better. So we have a noseless syphilitic Batman running around. 

Angie: From no point on will I ever take this story serious for that imagery. Thank you so much. 

Theresa: I’m here for that. It gets better. Okay. Now Batman is undeterred by the fact that he has been vetoed from receiving land because he sailed with a small group, Victoria, and while exploring there, he comes across a group of aboriginal people now. They are most likely thought to be ancestors of the people of the Collud Nation. And he ends up taking one of these humans hostages. Okay. This noseless syphilitic Batman takes eight year old boy, rolled Pana across Bath Strait on a land speculation exposition. Now, in popular memory, he signed what is called a treaty with the Rudunjuri jury elders for the district that became Melbourne. 

Angie: Hold on. I may be I may be throwing the pot here, but um, are you telling me that a noseless syphilitic Batman is the founder of Melbourne? Yes. Wow. Okay. 

Theresa: Cool. Now he claims that he met with six uh aboriginal chiefs on June 6, 1835, when he’s clearing or in a clearing of land by Mary Creek, which now runs through the north of the city. And it’s there that they agreed upon the price to rent the land. The exact location of this agreement, kinda unknown. 

He seems to be unreliable. But historians believe that it may have taken place in the modern day suburb of Northcote. North Cod. I’m probably saying it wrong, even if I try to correct it. So he drives he draws this treaty. It’s on a piece of parchment. This parchment is now in the National Museum of Australia, and in it he’s offered yearly rent of 20 blankets, 30 tomahawks, a hundred kniveslash scissors, thirty mirrors, two hundred and handkerchiefs, and a hundred pounds of flowers and six shirts in exchange for two hundred thousand hectares of land. 

Angie: So he gives them that and he gets two thousand hectares. Okay. 

Theresa: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Now apparently the chiefs signed the treaty and the squiggly symbols, but historians have noted that those looks suspiciously similar to some markings that are found in in Batman’s diary. 

Angie: Oh, like maybe he was trying to make his signature look like their or make a signature look like theirs. Yeah. 

Theresa: Fraudulent. 

Angie: A fraudulent, noseless, syphilitic Batman. 

Theresa: Who is the son of a convict. This all checks. Okay. Uh now that he’s got this land, reportedly or reputedly from these elders, he promptly names the land Batmania. 

Angie: Yeah, Good for him. 

Theresa: So Melbourne was originally Batmania. 

Angie: I’m really glad we made the switch to Melbourne, but that Batmania is really good. 

Theresa: This treaty was effectively a private sale or private contract of sale. And it’s one that the traditional owners, the actual First Nations people, they would never have understood. And in any case, Batman had no actual authority to make this treaty, and it’s immediately voided by the New South Wales government because they had outlawed colonial sediment settlement in what’s now Victoria. Now, they outlawed it, they voided this, not because it this is exploit exploitative, because it’s hugely exploitative, but because here’s the issue. The Crown recognized no indigenous rights of ownership of country, and so they had no right to dispose of it. 

Angie: Okay, so hold on. Just so I understand this. Please. We don’t recognize that you, the indigenous people of this land that we colonize, have ownership rights. So because we don’t recognize your ownership rights, we also don’t recognize You can’t give away what you don’t have. 

Theresa: Because you can’t put a flag here first. This belongs to the Queen of the Queen Victoria. Queen Vicky put her union jacket or had us put her union jack here. Okay. And so you can’t give what you don’t have. Wow, okay. 

Now wild. Queen Vicky hears that this has been named Batmania, and she’s like, not on my watch. So she names the city after Lord Melbourne in 1837, because that’s a close friend and mentor of hers. 

Angie: It’s just stupid. You want a city named after you, darling? Let’s name a city after you. 

Theresa: We could do something. We got something for you. You’ve been my mentor for years. And they’re calling it Batmania. 

Angie: I mean, this is just silly. 

Theresa: So because of this land grab, even or in spite of this land grab, I should say. So despite this bizarre treaty, Batman somehow acquires this posthumous representation where he’s considered a benevolent friend of the aborigines. Instead of being a murderous a-hole who defrauded this people and these nations, the colonial authorities, shame on you, shame on your ancestors, shame on your cow. Everything. 

Hang the shame curtains. But despite us thinking this, his contemporaries seem to have really seen him for what he was. There was a landscape painter named John Glover, who is a neighbor. And nobody’s gonna throw shade at you like a neighbor because he says he was a rogue, a thief, a cheat, and a liar, a murderer of blacks, and the vilest man I have ever known. That’s that’s an epitaph right there. Yeah. 

Angie: And noseless and syphilitic. Batman. Mm-hmm. 

Theresa: Mm-hmm. Here’s here’s where I I think I take it up a notch. 1837, the syphilis wrecked him. He’s in constant pain in his feet and legs, and it made him dependent on a wicker work Batmobile. 

What? He’s got basically a a wicker made wheelbarrow that’s being pushed around by a couple. So it’s a wheelchair. 

It doesn’t But not as described as a wheelchair. This sounds so much more improvised. Okay, okay. Now I need to remind you, he’s got bandages on his face because Brough’s nose has like fallen off. 

Angie: I wonder if that clears up the sinuses, you know. 

Theresa: I mean, honestly, I think if you had allergies, you could literally just reach in and get the stuff that’s in the way. That’s what I’m thinking. Maybe that’s a benefit. Maybe that’s a that’s a feature, not a bug. We should quit and they say everybody gets syphilis. 

Angie: You heard it here first, guys. 

Theresa: This is a health and science podcast. He’s can he’s built Batman has built his considerable fortune by swindling everybody he can get he can do. And he’s got a ton of property and business ventures all around Port Phillip. He’s aware, as he’s like paraplegic with his face falling off, that his life is gonna be cut short by this disease. You don’t say. Yeah, I mean, I think he saw it coming when the nose wins. 

Angie: You could usually give first sign. 

Theresa: So he starts trying to build an inheritance for his wife. He starts really thinking about everything. Now, his wife, Eliza, dear sweet woman. Um they have eight children together, and he’s doing everything he can to shower gifts on them. 

Now I will say it doesn’t look like one of those gifts with syphilis, which is great news because that’s congenital. It can be bad down. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Um, but this really extravagant lifestyle kind of led to a string of deaths. Like he’s racking up debt. Okay. Now, to make matters worse, Eliza, she begins relationship with uh Batman store man, a dude named William Willoughby. 

Angie: William Willoughby. 

Theresa: And once Batman realizes that this his health is just dropping, he also realizes that Eliza isn’t gonna stay in care for him. And so our duper vises his will. Oh no. He tries to cut her out completely, and the lawyer is actually trying to be the soulless or the soulful wonder here and just say like don’t cut her out completely. He goes, fine, five pounds. She can have five pounds. BS dude. 

Angie: I’ve lived with your syphilitic nose. Absolutely not. 

Theresa: W he she didn’t live with the syphilic nose. That fell off. That was gone. That is a syphilitic hole in the face, I think is what we’re going for. 

Angie: That’s what I mean. That’s your lack of a nose. 

Theresa: So he tries to remove her legal rights to all of his assets. And if that doesn’t say you’ve got holes in your brain. So Eliza just goes to England in February of 1839. She deuces. And she returns to hear that Batman has died alone in their Batman cottage, or that Batman hills cottage on May 6th, 1839, at the age of 38. 

Angie: Wow. I thought he was gonna be older than that. 

Theresa: So while she’s away, the Batman children are separated and sent to live with friends and relatives. I hate that. They’re sent with friends and relatives. She’s not there. She left a dying syphilitic man. That’s true. You know what are you gonna do? Honestly, I don’t think that there is a single non-villain in the story. 

Angie: Except for maybe the kids. 

Theresa: Or the aboriginal people who are just the victims of fancy. Yeah. Yeah. 

Angie: They’re just trying to live their life. 

Theresa: Now, it seems that the Batmans didn’t necessarily have the easiest of life because it’s 1845 that Batman’s son drowns in the Ura River while fishing. After this, Eliza just skedaddles. She disappears, leaving Willoughby and her daughters in Melbourne. There’s evidence to say that she gets murdered in a bar brawl in 1852. Good lord. 

Angie: Do the these people are doing the most and they need to slow down. 

Theresa: These are the founders of Melbourne. This checks. Now, for a long while, longer than it damn well should be, Batman’s remembered as the heroic founder of Melbourne. And again, I’m gonna say he’s dare I say it a humanitarian friend of the aborigines. But there are a ton of problematic issues with this bro. You don’t say. 

Yeah, a little bit. Uh 1882, there is a monument commemorating him as Melbourne’s founding father, and this is put at his burial site. There’s a huge, like a bunch of hurrah and everything around that. 

The same scenes kind of continue on when there is an exhumation of his body in the 1920s where he’s transferred to the Faulkner Cemetery, where a second memorial is unveiled. 

Angie: This is like the exact opposite of Santa Anna’s leg. 

Theresa: Yeah, truly. I will say that Faulkner, whom the cemetery is named after, apparently was his kind of nemesis, and so being buried in Faulkner Cemetery seems to be a big F you. 

I I kinda like that. I I wish I had like a year and a half to like study this dude because I want to know the beef between him and Faulkner. Now 1943, Herbert Burke celebrated romanticized him while repeatedly just trashing the first peoples in this highly offensive verse that I’m not quoting. And it’s in 1970s that the statue of John Batman is erected on the corners of Colin and William Streets in Narm in Melbourne. Okay. Now, 1992, there is kind of something that happens eight because okay, we had that 1881 monument that has this insulting claim that Batman had established a settlement on land that was unoccupied. 

There was nobody here. We’ve pushed them out. But then they rectified that with the inclusion of a plaque which was revised, replaced, and a new plaque containing stronger wording in 202 in 2004. And then in 2018, there was a campaign by Darebin Council that was led by the Greens. I should have figured out who the Greens were, that led to the electoral commission unanimously agreeing to rename Victoria’s federal seat of Batman, citing that John Batman’s participation in the massacre of the Aboriginal people in Tasmania during the Black War, which is also something I skipped over. 

Angie: Prior Well, uh Tier Nore was involved in the Black War. Yes. 

Theresa: And John Batman was a white devil up in there. Checks. Yeah, honestly. Yeah. But I got pictures of Batman. That’s awesome. Not something you thought I would tell you today in the story. 

Angie: Well, you know, I mean, that’s nice. He still has his nose. He looks like a cowboy. He’s got a kerchief tied around his neck. Beautiful wavy hair, the beard. He actually looks like an Amish cowboy. It’s a sketch. 

Theresa: That’s a sketch, yeah. Amish cowboy. Again, cowboy. And this guy is Minnonite. Oh. No, I mean not really, but like, I mean 

Angie: That’s that’s what he yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what it looks like. 

Theresa: The Amish with flight switches. Right there. 

Angie: Yeah, he’s got like a uh it’s a so this one’s a painting. You can see other people in the background. He’s standing on a hill. Um can you scroll down just a little bit? Oh, okay. That’s his shotgun. I was trying to figure out what was if that was a walking stick or what that was. He looks like he’s surveying the land and he’s very serious about it with his arms across his chest. Sound-curchest. 

Theresa: There was a painting I did not include because it was done more recently, uh, of him with a silver nose prosthetic. Because apparently there’s a dirty little rumor that he had one. I can’t find any historical source that actually says that, and so I didn’t include the the picture. 

Angie: That he had a had a prosthetic nose. 

Theresa: Everything I read just said he kept it covered with bandages. 

Angie: That means that makes sense. 

Theresa: But they did have nose prosthetics at the time for syphilis. 

Angie: Michael Ron had yeah. Taco Ron had a fake nose, but he wasn’t syphilite. Let’s take up that off. I mean, look, we all about it in our own way. No, whatever. 

Theresa: Yeah. But that’s that’s the story of problematic founding father. And I think it’s easier to tell the story of their founding father and not feel so pot committed to the fairy tale than if we tell the founding father tales of ours. What? 

Angie: Are you trying to say that our founding fathers are problematic? 

Theresa: I’m saying I didn’t tell the story of Ona Judge. The And you did because I knew that I would get people to start tearing down statues and renaming schools. 

Angie: Yeah, I uh you know, we’ll have our skill sets, I guess. Um, well, all right then. I’m going to take us on a very different turn. Surprise. Uh I know. Given that I spent last week talking about Dick Gorgeous, it seemed fitting that I do another heist story. Uh this one, however, does not feature him, but it does feature the Scottish. Oh. Very excited about that. 

Theresa: Just centering just up the map. 

Angie: Just a little bit. Um the University of Glasgow has a I don’t know if it’s like a a newsletter or um doesn’t didn’t didn’t quite fully understand it, but it it’s a a PDF type thing from the University of Glasgow that I would love to tell you what it’s called, but I can’t. It’s called Avenue. There we go. They have an article on this. Um there’s another article from the BBC titled As Long As It’s in Scotland, I’m happy by Greg McKevitt. Uh the other half of the title that I just totally dropped is the 1950 Heist to Reclaim the Ancient Stone of Destiny. 

Theresa: I know what this is about. 

Angie: Another BBC article, um, BBC Scotland News, the students who stole the Stone of Destiny by Stephen Brocklehurst, that is a March of 23 article. The Purpose Museum has the Great Heist of the Stone of Destiny. That one actually is a PDF. I don’t know why I told you the other one is. Um Historic UK by Ben Johnson has the Stone of Destiny, or or the Stone of Scone. Uh History Hit had a cute little like Diddy about ten fun facts that I that was just super cute about the stone. And then National Geographic has a Stone of Scone British Coronation by Run Ronan O’Connell published in May of 2023. So the beginning seems like a great place to start this. Visually. Do you know what the Stone of Destiny looks like? 

Theresa: Uh it’s a rock. It’s a little bit more substantial than the Plymouth rock. 

Angie: It’s a lot more substantial than the Plymouth Rock, actually. Visually, the Stone of Scone or the Stone of Destiny is a 330 to 335 pound red sandstone block. It’s like this yellowish tan color. It is not diamond or jewel encrusted or anything like that. It is a stone. 

But it holds the symbol of a nation. In fact, the Celtic name for it is called Leafal, or the speaking stone. This is the stone which the true kings of Scotland have been crowned for generations. This stone was known to proclaim the chosen king and supposedly like holler about it. Like when the chosen king sat down on it, it would sing. That that’s what the mythology says. 

Theresa: I mean, if I saw somebody sit on a rock and it started to like play music, I would probably pee myself and start checking my tea for hallucinogenics. 

Angie: That’s a great place to start. Now, originally it was used as part of the crowning ceremonies for the Scots King of Dalreata in Western this is the Western of Scotland. That is the area that is now called Argyll. So it’s about an hour north of Glasgow. Now, according to Scottish floor, when Kenneth I, the 36th King of the Dalreata, united the Scots and the Pictish people, he moved his capital to Scone in the East, like around 8840. From Moot Hill, Scone Palace in Perthshire. A lot of the future Kings of Scotland would be crowned here. This would depend on the era and like where that particular king’s um power base was, but it is possible that others like some of them were crowned elsewhere given the situation of the time, right? Like you’re not always we’re gonna crown you there. 

Theresa: Eventually you’re gonna go sit on a rock, we’ll do it again. 

Angie: Yeah, kinda yeah. So it does have a bit of a prophecy attached to it. Evidently at some point in the very distant past, there was a piece of metal, like a metal placard, like a plate attached to it. It has long since been lost. But according to folklore, Sir Walter Scott translated it and it read Unless the Fates be faulty grown and prophet’s bo voice be vain, wherever is found the sacred scone the sacred stone, the Scottish race shall reign. Do with that what you will. Just know there is a ton of mythology surrounding this stone. 

Theresa: You know, can I just say boy, it is so convenient that not only was he able to translate the the stone, but the translation rhymed in the translated country and language. 

Angie: Isn’t that crazy? So amazing. Yeah. Now, to be fair, we haven’t seen like we don’t know what this plaque looked like. We haven’t seen it. It it fell off like the article said the ancient times. 

It’s been gone for a minute. Sir Walter Scott lived in the 1700s. So I don’t know. Pick your time frame, I guess. Now, to rewind just a little bit, the origins of the stone of Destiny are murky at best. But here is one idea brought to us by the historic UK. 

They say that there is a legend dating all the way back to the biblical era that says it is the same stone with which Jacob used as a pillow at Bethel. Okay. 

Theresa: And just geography aside, we had we’re y you you you need to pack a coat too, and another pair, you’re not gonna need that fourth pair of shoes, but you need to bring the stone. The stone. in the rock. 

Angie: The stone has to come. So eventually it’s after being Jacob’s pillow, it’s going to be the pedestal that sat the Ark of the Covenant in the temple. Eventually it would be brought from Syria to Egypt by a king called Gathlus. Now he’s supposed to be this great warrior, a friend to Moses. He may have had to flee the area to Spain following a defeat of the Egyptian army, or it could have been plague. 

Take your pick. From this point, one of his his descendants brings the stone all the way to Ireland. This descendant would be crowned the king of Ireland, and on it, like all the other kings of Ireland would be crowned here until the Scots invaded and it went to Argyle on the West Coast. Then in the ninth century, supposedly it was moved to Scone, which I’ve already mentioned. What we know for sure is that it sat there in Scotland until it was removed by none none other than the English king, King Edward the First, aka Hammer of the Scots in twelve ninety six. He takes the scone, the scone, the stone of scone, to Westminster Abbey, London, which has hosted every English coronation since way for it, ten sixty six. I’m telling you, ten sixty-six is my Roman it all goes back to ten sixty. It all goes back to the Okay, okay. Look, we all have our thing. 

Right. Now, as a delightful aside here, there is a belief that the monks of Scone, upon realizing that King Edward is like on his way there, were able to hide the real one, and Edward took a fake, a decoy, if you will, that we have been crowning English monarchs on for a thousand years. 

Theresa: How are you hiding the real one? Are you moving it a hundred under the curtains? Like a toddler. Are you throwing a hat on it? 

Angie: Okay, so me and the husband discussed this, and the way the stone looks, it could very easily be like a foundation stone, or um like maybe they just rolled the original into the river. 

Like it’s it would be very easy to hide. And we’ll get back to that in just a little bit. Now, this court this stone is gonna have a coronation chair made for it in thirteen oh one and s excuse me, since thirteen oh one, every English monarch since Edward II has been crowned on it, including King Charles. Now, I don’t know if you know this, but historically the people with whom the English subjugate typically have a beef with their colonial attitude, and the Scottish are no different. So it will come as no surprise to you that in nineteen fifty, someone set out to get the stone back. After all, it had spent literal generations in the wrong country. 

Theresa: Can I can I interrupt you real quick? I have seen hilarious. So I was at one of my daughter’s extracurricular activities, and I am listening to another parent talk about how she’s so excited about their trip to Scotland coming up because she just quote loves British history. I had to leave immediately because obviously I’d left something. There must be a baby or a puppy in my car. I have got to go lose it over there. 

Angie: Excuse me, I’ll be back. 

Theresa: Yeah, because I’m just going to do it. No, no, no. I’m pleased. My husband called him. and say that. 

Angie: I get well. I would think that towards the child, they’re gonna be pretty cool about it. Like, you know, what do you think? 

Theresa: This was an adult woman. 

Angie: Yeah, I mean, the adult woman, she has it coming. Um, Okay, so there is a young man, he’s a Glasgow University student named Ian Hamilton. And he comes up with the idea that he might just be able to orchestrate returning the stone to its rightful place. Now what you need to know is Ian is a bit of an active young man in a group called the Scottish Covenant Association. 

Theresa: That kind of name is either going to be very benign or extremely problematic. You got a 50-50. 

Angie: You truly do. Now, the the quick Google search that I did to figure out exactly what the Scottish Covenant Association is, tells me it is a prominent nonpartisan political organization dedicated to establishing a devalued Scottish assembly within the UK. Basically, they just want home rule. 

They seem so bad. That that makes sense to me. Right? Like they’re they’re literally just can we make our own decisions? Like you can still be the head of state and all that, but we would really just like to have some say, right? 

Theresa: We want to we want to set our own our bedtime. Thank you. We’re adults now. 

Angie: Thank you. We can do this. Um they even they create a petition. It gets no less than two million signatures, which at the time is over half the adult population of Scotland. 

Theresa: Half. Over half. Wow. 

Angie: Um so Ian is very active in this group. And he gathers up a couple of friends, a young man called Gavin Vernon and another one called Alan Stewart, and a young lady called Kay Matheson, whom according to sources, he quite fancies. 

Now, all three of these additional students are also involved in the Scotch Covenant Association. And they get to work. They’re like, Yeah, let’s do this. And so they’re all the scheming and the research and the recon, like all of it. And then Steven Brocklehurst, writing for the BBC Scotland News says, quote, during I I literally love this so much. During the Christmas holidays from university, the four students set off for London in two elderly Ford cars. And I’m like, Yeah, imagery is so good. 

Theresa: Yeah, look, That vehicle belonged to grandma and she gave it to you when the when her kids took her license away and said, Well, you need it for school. Yep. 

Angie: Uh two of them. Two of them. Uh now, to be clear, this is not just a jaunt. This is a four hundred plus mile trek from Glasgow to Winchester. Four hundred miles. Yeah. Bitch, please. Sorry. 

Theresa: I I have recognized that they just don’t drive that. Anyhow, carry on. I’m I’m done. 

Angie: I mean, it’s not like you’re not com you’re not completing it in an hour. It’s not like running down to the Costco. 

Theresa: No, you’re you’re committing to it. But it’s yeah, you’re 400 miles. 

Angie: Yeah, it’s 400 miles. Um, Now, what I’m gonna tell you next feels like the most Scooby-doo crap ever. But the plan. Now, mind you, up to this point, they have been scheming and researching and plotting and reconning like all of this, right? 

This is the plan they’ve come up with. Theyan is going to slip into a dark corner of the Abbey, and I cannot stress this enough, Westminster Abbey just before closing time. 

Theresa: But like, is an Abbey gonna be well lit? Honestly, I asked you. I just I don’t think they’re known for their sterile lighting environments. 

Angie: I don’t think they’re known for their sterile lighting either, and his plan is that, you know, right like he’s gonna go in as just an abbey goer, right? He’s gonna slip in and hide in a corner until it is good and closed for the night, and then he’s gonna open the door from the inside. And nothing, absolutely nothing can go wrong with this plan, right? Like, yeah, Like, yeah, I know this. 

Theresa: I’m just gonna open the door. Solid. 

Angie: Totally foolproof. Uh well, the watchman finds him and like immediately throws him out. But totally settles for Ian’s bonehead excuse that he was just accidentally locked in. So he goes back to his three friends who are parked nearby in their two Fords, and they regroup and they try again the next night. 

It’s like 4 a.m. They have a new plan. Verily similar to the last plan, but not. K, the girl that Ian has the hawks for, she is parked like right outside the abbey, and the other car is parked nearby, like to make it look less suspicious. 

Theresa: Yeah, they’re not gonna be window to window passing fries. Right. 

Angie: So Kay is waiting as like the getaway driver, right? And the three fellas, they go up to the poet’s corner door, so think the area of Westminster Abbey where like all the famous British poets have been buried. Um and they try to pick the lock. But only to realize none of them actually have that skill set. 

Theresa: You had time to plan. You have time like lock picking can t kits are a thing. You’re not supposed to own one in America, but I I 

Angie: see It wa it could it’s it’s not hard anyway. 

Theresa: It’s not hard lock picking by Angie 

Angie: Do you know how many picks I have like locks I have p had to pick in my lifetime which is a stupid question to ask but yes more than one. I picked my first one when I was three and my dad was so proud 

Theresa: your dad who had a literal scrapbook of his wrongdoings. Angie, the fact that we are recording a history podcast and you are not behind bars is a testament to Jesus Christ in your life. 

Angie: Honest to goodness because I have committed no crimes but I have picked a lock or two in my day. 

Theresa: Mostly because you’ve not been caught pick doing crimes. You’ve just admitted to one 

Angie: No let me tell you what happened the bathroom door got locked from the inside and apparently I was the only one that could open it from the outside so I was the one notorious for getting the door unlocked um don’t know why that was the case. But anyway they can’t pick locks not their skill set their dad didn’t teach them 

Theresa: right Fathers of the Unhinged History Podcast you have one job put this down and start teaching toddlers to pick locks. 

Angie: Come on get it together. So they abandon the idea all together and they move on to trying to just you know pry the door open later on Kay is gonna say that she was sure they could hear the noise on the other side of 

Theresa: London I can’t imagine that a group of like late teenage boys are quiet about ripping a door off its hinges. 

Angie: Right? Okay, so somehow by the sheer grace of Scottish tenacity they manage to get the door open and they go about removing the stone from its home under the throne. Um for those of you that have not seen it basically it is a wooden throne with a shelf like space beneath it that is the seat for this rectangularish oblongish stone to sit. So it’s like it’s like it’s it’s like its own little drawer sort of thing. 

Theresa: Imagine a training potty but where you would go poopoos is the stone exactly. You go poops you become king that’s the rule. 

Angie: Perfect now I think I said this earlier but the stone is like 330 pounds. It’s a bowler it’s not the Plymouth rock um as Teresa pointed out so they find themselves obviously having a heck of a time so Ian has this rather brilliant idea uh at least in the moment and he takes his coat off with the intent to use it to drag the stone across the floor like uh moving Like you 

Theresa: know shimmy just kinda 

Angie: shimmy out of the floor, right just rip up that flooring as you go because that thing’s not coming easy. Yeah. 

Angie: Uh now the other two fellows remember Gavin and Alan his friends they each take an arm of Ian’s coat and they start to pull. Ian in the meantime grabs a hold of one of the chains that’s like attached to the stone and as soon as he starts to pull the stone breaks in 

Theresa: half this is why we can’t have nice things. 

Angie: Honestly what they did not know was that about 40 years earlier there was a suffragette bomb attack that may very well have weakened the stone so all it needed was one good yank and that was gonna be the end of it. Ian in a moment of I’m sure shock and panic just takes the smaller bit of the stone weighing in at about ninety pounds and runs it like a rugby ball. Okay. 

Theresa: Like have you tried carrying a fourth grader football style Yeah that’s what he does. 

Angie: In fact there’s one article points out that it was like half of his body weight or over half of his body weight that he was just like gonna huck across the huff across the the Abbey with he’s booking it. Kay sees him coming but at the same time that she sees him she also sees the police officer looking down her way from the the end of the road so she pulls the car up as close to Ian as she can. Ian gets to the car, pushes the stone into the back seat and covers it with like another coat that they had in the car. 

Theresa: Well, because first off, let’s say it’s just a rock. No one’s going to assume it is the stone of destiny. They’re gonna be like hey guys, steal that from the Smith’s house. They have that to guard the mailbox that nobody ran into it again. 

Angie: God, do not see the dent. Um what happens next can only be described as a scene from the movie because supposedly Ian then hops into the front seat and one says to the other, kiss me. And it works. The passing officer stops to find two young lovers in what one of the BBC articles calls a passionate embrace. The officer taps on the window, they pretend to be caught unawares, you know, they’re in this heated moment, and they explain to him, Oh, we’re so sorry, we had just gotten into town for the holiday, we haven’t yet made it to our hotel. The sympathetic officer, who I am now envisioning to be the same guy from the night before, who just kicks Ian out, but I don’t think it was the same guy. Yeah, the night watchman and a police officer. I think they’re different people, but he just lets them go, totally unaware that um the stone of destiny, or at least part of it is in the back seat. 

Theresa: I mean they didn’t feel the stone of destiny, they only saw half of it. That’s only half of a crime. Not a full crime. 

Angie: Yeah, I think a third of the crime. Um as far as the other two fellows and a larger section go, they thought they had all but been abandoned, so they flee. But they had not been abandoned. Because also Ian had dropped the keys to the other car in the abbey. And so he goes back in time to find them, ’cause like we need the other car, right? Yeah. 

Now, in the meantime, Kay drives off alone with her part of the stone, and she stops at a traffic light just a couple of miles away, and it was a very sudden stop, and the so stone literally just falls out of the car. Unclear how that happens. My guess is the door wasn’t closed all the way. 

Theresa: It’s a really old car. 

Angie: Yeah, I’m saying I’m thinking when he put he didn’t you know it didn’t latch, whatever. Um, so thankfully the coat or whatever it was wrapped in, it saves it from any damage. She gets out, heaves the stone back into the boot or the trunk of the car, as we Americans say. She man handles a 90 pound okay. 

Theresa: Look, she’s got some tenacity, I’ll give her that. Good honor, right? 

Angie: Sh as shaken as she is, she is able to drive the stone to an English friend of hers in Birmingham. One source says that all three men worked together to get the rest of the stone in the other car. Um 

not a hundred percent clear exactly how this works because after Ian found the keys by stepping on them because he dropped them in the middle of the doorway of the abbey, Good, sure. most other yeah, right. Most other sources say that he was left to handle the rest himself. 

Theresa: But regardless, yeah, like he can help or not. a 200 and 10 pound stuff. Okay. I’m calling bullshit, but all right. 

Angie: Yeah. Regardless, they did it, and they get the whole of the stone of destiny, and just as the sun is rising on Christmas Day, Ian drives away. Most sources say that he located his other two companions near old Kent looking very lost. And they all go together to bury the big section in the open country near Rochester Kent. One of the BBC articles said that they began to worry about the fact that the stone had been kept inside for the last six hundred and fifty plus years. 

Theresa: How would it be? well would it be wild anymore? 

Angie: Yeah, how well is it gonna react to being kept in the winter weather? Like this is winter. It it could get it could freeze, what’s gonna happen? Is it gonna break more? 

Theresa: So on the case. Okay, it’s gonna break more. I’m like it’s a it’s a rock. This is its natural habitat. 

Angie: That’s exactly what I said, but these guys are worried, right? This is the symbol of a nation for them. 

Theresa: Give it a sweater and a ring coat. 

Angie: It already has one. So on New Year’s Eve, they go to get it, and they find that a group of travelers had set up camp right on top of the burial spot. Thankfully, the fellas are able to convince the travelers to help carry the stone to the car, and the travelers never tell the police about nothing, because they ain’t no snitches. 

Theresa: Okay, but they’re probably like the hell was that about? Do you remember that time camping out in the country? We we did winter camping. We we shouldn’t have done that because camping is rough, and then it was winter, so it was cold. And then these guys forced us to dig and then help them heave these were weird. They were real I think they were a cult. 

Angie: So when you get the full picture, I’m thinking when they say travelers, they mean your Irish travelers, your um Romani people, Romani people? 

Theresa: Yes. Okay. 

Angie: The the people that live in caravans. 

Theresa: Yes, I like how you didn’t want to use the slur. I appreciate that. 

Angie: Yeah, we are. Um so I think for them this was probably a moment of like, oh, we can stick it to the English. Game recognizes game. Let me get more trouble. Derek. Um meanwhile. It’s Christmas morning, right? That’s when they drove off with the with the rock in the first place. So they’ve it I’ve skipped ahead to tell you about New Year’s Eve, but on Christmas morning, the Dean of Winchester wakes excuse me, the dean of Westminster wakes up to discover the stone is gone. When the theft was discovered, it was an international sensation, and the border between Scotland and England was closed for the first time in four hundred years. 

Theresa: Wow. 

Angie: Quote, the Metropolitan Police had correctly assumed that the stolen stone was heading north of the border, so a team of Scotland Yard detectives were sent to work with the Scottish police. Two days later, the dean who I just mentioned, he’s a man called Alan Don, and he makes this very solemn appear on the the BBC radio about this very senseless crime. He says, Quote, it has been in the Abbey for over six hundred years, and not until this week has anyone dared to lay sacrilegious hands upon it. This precious relic is treasured by millions throughout the British Commonwealth as Empire and Empire, and not least by those who like myself see it in the symbol of the Scottish descent of our beloved king. He goes on to say, I will go to the ends of the earth to fetch it back. 

Theresa: This is a very Liam Nissan very, you know, sentiment here. 

Angie: I find it hilarious that he refers to their hands as sacrilegious for stealing their own rock back. Now, it’s worth mentioning that Ian is looking a little sus. Yeah, no, you don’t say. You 

don’t say. Because it becomes very clear to the police that in the previous months, he had checked out every book imaginable on the stone from the Glasgow’s Mitchell Library. So people got eyes on him. 

Theresa: Okay, but like how crazy is their surveillance that you start checking out books on a rock and you trigger some sort of national surveillance in what, the sixties? 50s. 

Angie: It’s 1950. 

Theresa: This is though they are going to card catalogue, and you got a bunch of Nosey librarians going, he checks out one more book. We’re going to send this to Scotland Yard. 

Angie: So I think what had happened is um one of the uh one of the articles, and I don’t have this in my notes, like exactly what they marked it with, but one of the detectives found like either on the chair itself or near the chair, some sort of etching that was like one of their symbols or initials for the Scottish Covenant Association. 

Theresa: So they signed their work. 

Angie: Pretty much. Or at least that’s what the detective thought. So as soon as they were like, okay, let’s go check this out. I think they were able to put two and two together and be like, okay, we need to what’s going on here with these individuals, that sort of thing. Now when the stone crossed the border on New Year’s Eve when they went and dug it up from with the travelers, it was the first time since twelve ninety-six that it had been home. A businessman from High Bonnie Bridge near Falkirk called John Rollo received the stone. His 

agreement to take the stone was based on one thing. No one but myself will ever know where it is because a secret is a secret with when it’s only with one person. He’s not wrong. Right? 

The police, they never did discover his actual story. He was interviewed about the events in 1971 by the b BBC Radio Scotland, and he told them that if he was gonna do this interview, the tapes must be kept a secret until after his death. And they kept their word. Well done. Right? So 1986 is when we learned that he was in fact the vice chairman of the Scottish Covenant Association, and despite the police being sus about him and visiting his factory more than once, he was able to keep the smaller section of the stone in his office just under his desk. He’s putting his feet up on it. Yeah. 

Theresa: User to put his lunch on. 

Angie: Yep. Eventually, the stone would be moved to this remote location of Camp Bus Kenneth Abbey in Sterling, and that’s where it’s gonna be repaired. Like they they meld the two pieces back together. Um but after a few months, the association decides it’s time to return the stone. It has served as purpose of publicizing the Scottish case of home rule. So the stone is left at the ruined Arbroth Abbey, the scene of a 1320 declaration calling for the rights of Scottish to rule themselves. So 

it’s like a symbolic. vacation. Now Greg McKevitt writing for the BBC says, quote, Abbey Custodian Mr. Weisheart told Newsreel that three men arrived in a car and carried it in on a wooden stretcher. Police transported it back to the police transported it back south of the border while senior lawyers lawyers decided what to do with the culprit. Just three days after it was returned, more than thirty thousand Scottish football fans made their way down to London to watch their team beat England three to two in the home championship. There is a BBC newsreel that follows many of the fans to the Abbey after the match so they can catch a peak of the stone. But by now right, the authorities are not taking any chances, and they have the stone locked like a way out of sight, and they put extra guard detail on it. This is so funny. Now 

the kids are not charged for the crimes because on April 19th, the attorney general, a man called Sir Hartley Shawcross, told the House of Commons he had decided that it was not in the public interest to create martyrs or heroes by persecuting those behind these vulgar acts of vandalism. 

Theresa: He’s gotta say something strong, vulgar. 

Angie: Truly. I didn’t realize they’re initials because of whatever. 

Theresa: They’re going to tear the prison down. Whatever prison we put them in, that prison will be torn down brick by brick. 

Angie: Yeah, we got you. Uh in just two years two years’ time, Queen Lizzie Two would be crowned on it. And in July of nineteen ninety-six, the Queen along with so Queen Lizzie Two, the Queen, along with Prime Minister John Major, agreed that the stone should be returned to Scotland. So on St. Andrew’s Day, November 30th of 1996, 10,000 people lined Edinburgh’s Royal Mile to witness the Stone of Destiny return to Scotland for the second time, but for the first official time in seven hundred years. Wow. 

Gavin Vernon, if you’re curious to know what happened to the kids, because I was Gavin Vernon graduated in electrical engineering and immigrated to Canada in the sixties. He is famous for saying that he never had to buy a beer again anytime he returned to his homeland. He did not die until March of 2004. Whoa. 

Alan Stewart had a successful business career in Glasgow. He died um at 88 years old in 2019. K Mathitz Matheson studied at the Doe School in Domestic Science teaching, after which she returned to her home in the West Highlands. She was a teacher in the low local primary school. She 

didn’t die until 2013. And then our guy, the ring the ringleader of the whole shebang, Ian Hamilton, would go on to have a successful career in none other than criminal law. Takes one to no one. Right. 

He wrote two books about the taking of the stone, and he died October in October of twenty-two. I would like to end with this delightful quote. He said, To do something for your country that does not spill a drop of blood is, I think, something to be proud of. Two 

things I learned after the fact. When the stone was restored before it was brought back to the Abbey, to the ruined Abbey to be sent back to England, it was overseen by a guy called Bertie Gray. Um he was a nationalist politician and also a stonemason. And it only emerged in like twenty-three or twenty-five that Gray had gifted leftover fragments to personal and political associations when he was done repairing the stone. 

Theresa: Wow. So wait, he repaired the stone and just like any other repairman had extra bits. Pretty much, yeah. 

Angie: Um they also I can’t remember what year it is. I didn’t I didn’t write the year year down in my notes, but after 1996, when Queen Elizabeth had it permanently sent back to Scotland, um testing was done on it, and as as it turns out, it was stone from the local area of Perth. 

Theresa: Perth, as in Australia? 

Angie: No, as in Perth the Perthshire in Scotland, like it matched all the stones there. And so is it. 

Theresa: So it’s not this so and so’s pillow pillar of the Ark of the Cov Yeah, surprise, surprise. 

Angie: Shocking, I know. Um, which made me laugh like really hard to learn that it had gone through all of this and was literally just a rock from down the way. So that is the story, and I do have a picture if you want to see. 

Theresa: Okay, so Angie is showing me the throne that is in Westminster Abbey, which is basically a really cool pew for one. Um it’s got some ornate footings, but it’s got a cubby hole for a rock. Yep. 

Angie: It actually reminds me of the like throne type pews that priests sit on in Catholic ceremonies that like line the sidewall of the pulpit. So it kind of checks for being in an abbey. Yeah, it does. Did I say Winchester Abbey at the beginning? I 

feel like I did. It’s Westminster. It’s not like Winchester is what came out of my mouth. Oh 

well. It is Westminster. Now I have to go back and check my notes to see if I typed it wrong. Anyway, that’s the story of the Stone of Scones trip to Scotland. I love it. 

Theresa: And if you need a throne with a cubbyhole for a rock, or know somebody who does, rate review, subscribe, and send this to somebody else who also would do something unhinged, like steal the rock of death, the stone of destiny, the stone of scone. Yep. Or become a syphilitic Batman. Yeah. And on that note. Goodbye. 

Speaker 3: Bye.