If you re watching this video on the day it s uploaded,
then today is the coronation of Charles III. I m not a royalist, in fact, far from it,
but I am intrigued by the history of our nations
so if you re watching this at any other time you ll get an insight into UK History,
because on this morning of the coronation of Charles III,
I m looking at some differences between this and the coronation of Charles II
and connections between the two. and Scotland History Torus has been
given special access to one of the jewels in the crown of Royal heritage to do just that.
If you re interested in the people, places and events in Scottish history
then click the subscribe button at the bottom right of the screen.
In the meantime, let me tell you a story. Before Westminster Abbey existed
we had the stone of destiny. Its history is at the core of what unites
and divides us on the island of Great Britain. For the coronation of a new monarch, it sits under
Westminster s coronation chair but it belongs
here. It is the Stone of Scone.
The last Charles was crowned in a chapel that stood on this mound
a mound that saw the inauguration of many kings before him .
They sat on the Stone of Destiny here but he didn t
In fact no-one had since Robert the Bruce. so I m going to peel back layers of time,
then lead you along a corridor to reach today s royal coronation.
When Charles the second was first crowned, he would have entered through this door.
At that time it was the main entrance to the Abbot s Palace, redesigned by the
Ruthven Earls of Gowrie here at Scone. Charles arrived on 31st December 1650
for a New Year s Day coronation and we re going to follow in his footsteps through
the gilded rooms and rough terrain that bring us to today s coronation of Charles III.
Charles Stewart had been declared king of Scots on 5th February 1649..
shortly after his dad s execution in London. It was almost a year later he walked in here
of course, The English had declared a republic. So, as soon as Charles arrived in Scotland ,
Oliver Cromwell invaded. So By the time of Charles s coronation here
English republican parliamentarians already controlled much of the south of Scotland.
Scots were appalled at the execution of his dad in England,
but Charles still had had to make humbling concessions to be crowned in Scotland.
He d had to sign the National Covenant diminishing his role relative to Parliament and the church.
The Monarchy was weaker than it ever had been.
There was religious strife... There was political tension between Scotland and England
but on New Year s Day in 1651 Charles II would have stood on this spot
The building s been remodelled, but the door we came in would have been the entrance then
and the gallery we ll pass along was the route followed by the coronation party.
Leave aside cosmetics and modernisation , this place,
and the family who live here haven t changed from then till now.
This is a picture of David Murray the first Viscount Stormont.
It s his 14 times great nephew, who s given us access to the palace today.
This chap was given this property because he rescued James VI, the grandfather of Charles II
from a mob in Perth, who had him trapped in a house,
about to blow him up in a gunpowder plot that came far closer to success than the one
that s celebrated each 5th November.
This place was taken from the Ruthvens, who owned it, and given to David Murray.
I cover the story in my video The day the UK nearly Didn t happen.
Without him there is no Charles II in 1651 and there is no Charles III today.
So it s the same family. It's the same building because let me show you.
This is a model of the building back then and the current building side by side.
We came in that door as Charles would have. It s a side door now, but the structure,
with bits added on, still remains.
We ve come up the stairs and Charles would have started his day in his audience chamber here
which is here and we re going
to follow the route he would have processed out of the door at that end of the room,
where on the other side of the octagonal hall he would have followed with crown,
sceptre and sword, escorted by nobility
of Scotland along this gallery. You can see that the original building had a door
halfway along the gallery and the coronation party would have gone
out that door to Moot Hill, the chapel, and that site of Royal inauguration.
You can see from the modern model that door isn t there anymore.
It s now a big window. We ll have to break that down
but first, Charles wasn t the only monarch to grace this room.
The king now being crowned Charles III follows the death of our longest serving monarch Elizabeth.
I m not going to give her a number because that opens a whole can of worms.
Should she have been known as Elizabeth I or Elizabeth II.
Scotland never had an Elizabeth before; the UK never had an Elizabeth before.
Was her choice to be called Elizabeth II a snub to Scotland?
Was the coronation at Westminster Abbey,
but merely a visit in daywear to accept of honours of Scotland in Edinburgh a snub
or sensible royal protocol? That s something that you folks
can argue out in the comments section. The engagement helps the algorithm.
The point is that it was our longest serving monarch
s death that prompted today s coronation , but this room is set out as it would have been for
the visit of our second longest serving monarch, Queen Victoria.
Charles II inherited three kingdoms at war with each other and with themselves.
That bloodshed continued in the Jacobite period, in which the Murrays played a
huge role on the Jacobite side It was that Jacobite period that
ultimately led to the United Kingdom, but these two longest serving monarchs,
one Queen just passed and another who s presence hangs in this room
to many will seem like rocks on which that United Kingdom stood
We ll come back to them as we walk the long gallery, as Charles did before us, but first ..
we pass through a time portal .
I always think that this point of the palace is both beautiful and evocative.
It s almost as if standing here you look all the way into the past,
beyond Elizabeth, beyond Victoria beyond Charles II to previous kings.
James IV, the last Gaelic speaking Scottish king,
who married Margaret Tudor, to Robert the Bruce,
who retained Scotland s Independence to Malcolm Canmore who s marriage to the
Saxon Princess Margaret fleeing Norman Conquests may have changed these islands as much as any
All crowned here as we look forward on the death of Elizabeth
what comes next? who wasn t
just a top tour guide here at Scone Palace but was also a pupil of mine when I was
a science teacher at Perth High School .
So the first unified coronation wasn t in Westminster Abbey in London,
but Scone Palace in Perthshire. Of course, it would be very different from
the ceremony we ll expect for Charles III Yes, it wasn t an Anglican service,
but Presbyterian. No Archbishop of Canterbury
that you ll see today. No superstitious anointing of oil.
In fact, the crown wasn t even placed on his head by a cleric, but by the Marquis of Argyll
as Mormaer Scots noblemen had presented the inauguration honours in past times.
There was another important element that was part of Scots inaugurations
that won t be present today. Reading of pedigree blah blah
Then came a coronation banquet here in the palace itself.
Plentiful supply of Bordeaux and Burgundy; damask napkins embroidered with CR
and expensive cloth from Holland; twenty-two salmon, ten calves heads,
vast numbers of partridges and meat . Manuscripts found here in the Scone
Palace archives show entries for the generous food orders.
After the coronation here it took ten years, and the death of Oliver Cromwell,
before England fell into line and Charles had a second,
unnecessary, coronation at Westminster. He had already been crowned king of England here.
Shortly after that second coronation Charles Stewart signed the Charter granting
the Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa
that kicked off the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in Britain.
One hundred and eleven years later a slave landing on English soil from Boston USA
challenged his master s right to own him when he set foot on that land.
It wasn t the end, but maybe the beginning of the end.
The newly freed slave, who won his case was called Somerset.
The Master who lost was called Charles Stewart My point is that there s a continuous thread,
maybe even a symmetry about this place that takes us from that rescue of James VI back
in 1600, through acts and artifacts of empire, to its peak at Victoria s visit.
Jason I ve brought people to Scone Palace many times,
but I ve tended to focus on Moot Hill and ancient kings like Macbeth, before handing
them over to you for inside tours. Here s a measure of the change that s happened .
Whilst today s ceremonials of Charles III would, of course, be familiar to his mother,
with hindsight, her coronation feels like a turning point.
It s sometimes seemed like she was single handily trying to
hold back the tide with quiet fortitude.
Five years after her coronation my dad s home state, Ghana, was established.
The single black star on our flag tells that we were the first of
a series of colonies that would become independent members of the Commonwealth.
Over time many of these new countries would find influences elsewhere
and the bonds and influence of empire weakened. Two world wars that had held together the
nations of Great Britain itself were over, and in time that glue has bound less certainly.
At times it seemed like the one thing that held us together was the queen now past.
as the sceptre is passed it feels like we re at a crossroads.
Who knows what s on the other side
When Charles II walked along that corridor he couldn t have known what the future held.
His nations divided, competing religious differences, a weakened monarchy on
the edge of the precipice and forced to compromise.
It was a transition, on the other side of which was exile then reinstatement,
the killing times and the Royal Society. Slavery and Newtonian science,
Jacobite wars and the Enlightenment, The Industrial Revolution that would bring
untold development and climate change. Charles III has a deep interest
in environmental issues, but one of the first things he was made to do
was cancel his attendance at a Climate change conference if he
really wanted to be a constitutional monarch A monarchy forced to compromise; weakened,
some say on the edge of a precipice; trying to balance competing religions
and be the defender of all faiths with the British nations divided
There s a sense in which nothing has changed since 1651.
There s also a sense that walking this gallery is a journey from
a past which is only certain in hindsight to a future well... It might seem daunting.
Charles might want to pass the baton to somebody else
well I ve got the robes for it. There are probably many folks on these
islands who ve never realised the vital importance of this place in the history of all our nations.
Why not make a point of visiting some time. If you ve ever wondered how Scottish are the
British royal family then there s a video coming up on screen now.