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

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Clearly the essential fact about a
Coronation stone is that it should have
the magic power of prophetic speech.
It is no wonder that legends should
gather about such a wonderful stone.
In 1324 Robert Bruce appealed to Ed-
ward II. that the Scots might have
restored to them “ the famous stone,
which King Edward, senior, had placed
near the tomb of St. Edward. Scota,
the daughter of Pharaoh, had brought
it from Egypt; she gave her name to
the land which was before called Albion,
and Moses had prophesied that victory
should follow the stone.” If Moses set
so much store by the stone he may have
known all along that it had been Jacob’s
pillow 1 but no record of its having come
from Bethel exists until the claim was
made on an inscribed tablet, which hung
by the chair. L. Von Widel, who visited
the church in 1584-5, says : “In the
choir a chair was shown to us, in which
all the English Kings were crowned ; in
this chair is enclosed a stone on which
Jacob is said to have rested. On one
sepulchre there was a sword, twelve
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