Lethaby, William Richard: Westminster Abbey and the antiquities of the coronation (London: Duckworth & Co., 1911)

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power that when any of the royal race
placed themselves on it to be crowned it
made a terrible noise like thunder, but
if the King-elect was a pretender the
stone was silent; he only was rightful
King under whom the stone spoke!
Such, a prophetic gift was of course
most valuable to those who controlled
all the machinery of State (see Neale’s
“ Westminster Abbey ’’and W. F. Skene).
The old Scottish historian, Hector
Boece, has a verse referring to the Stone
of Scone which mentions its magic power
of speech.
“ The Scots shall govern and the sceptre sway
Where’er this stone they find, and its dread sound
obey.”
Irish writers have conceded the identity
of Lia Fail with the Stone of Scone
“now in the throne upon which is pro-
claimed the King of the Saxons.” Some
years ago Dr. Whitley Stokes published
an Irish account of how Henry I. “ left
Ireland and went to the city of St.
David; and there happened to be on
the north side of the church [St. David’s
Cathedral] a stone called the Speaking
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