A notable survival of the primitive reverence for the one foundation, or
the original threshold, as the earliest place of sacrifice and
covenanting,[710] is shown in the famous “Coronation Stone” in
Westminster Abbey. This stone is under the chair in which all the
sovereigns of England from Edward I. to Victoria have been crowned. It
was brought by Edward I. to England from Scone, the coronation seat of
the kings of Scotland. The legend attached to it was that it was the
stone pillar on which Jacob rested at Bethel,–the House of God where
Abraham worshiped, and where Jacob covenanted with God for all his
generations.[711]
“In it, or upon it, the Kings of Scotland were placed by the Earls of
Fife. From it Scone became the ‘_sedis principalis_’ of Scotland, and
the kingdom of Scotland the kingdom of Scone.” Since the days of Edward
I., it has never been removed from Westminster Abbey, except when
Cromwell was installed as Lord Protector in Westminster Hall, on which
occasion it was brought out in order that he might be placed on it.
As in ancient Babylonia, in Egypt, in Syria, in India, in China, in
Arabia, in Greece, in Scandinavia, the one primitive foundation was
deemed the only foundation on which to build securely with Divine
approval, so in the very center of the highest modern civilization the
reputed foundation stone of the kingdom of the “Father of the Faithful”
is deemed the only secure coronation, or installation, seat of King,
Queen, or Lord Protector. Is it not reasonable to suppose that this
feeling has a basis in primitive religious convictions and customs?
Dean Stanley, referring to this Coronation Stone as “probably the chief
object of attraction to the innumerable visitors to the Abbey,” says of
it: “It is the one primeval monument which binds together the whole
Empire. The iron rings, the battered surface, the crack which has all
but rent its solid mass asunder, bear witness to its long migrations. It
is thus embedded in the heart of the English monarchy–an element of
poetic, patriarchal, heathen times, which, like Araunah’s rocky
threshing-floor in the midst of the Temple of Solomon, carries back our
thoughts to races and customs now almost extinct; a link which unites
the Throne of England to the traditions of Tara and Iona, and connects
the charm of our complex civilization with the forces of our mother
earth,–the stocks and stones of savage nature.”[712]
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Footnote 704:
Driver’s _Deuteronomy_, p. 323.
Footnote 705:
_Heb. Chald. Lex._, s. v.
Footnote 706:
See p. 187 f., _supra_.
Footnote 707:
See, also, 2 Kings 21 : 6; 23 : 10; 2 Chron. 33 : 6; Ezek. 16 : 21; 20
: 26, 31; 23 : 37.
Footnote 708:
See, also, Jer. 7 : 31; 19 : 5.
Footnote 709:
See pp. 39–42, 142 f., 212, _supra_.
Footnote 710:
See pp. 153–164, _supra_.
Footnote 711:
See Dean Stanley’s _Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey_, first
edition, pp. 59–67; also, Appendices, pp. 492–502.
Footnote 712:
See Dean Stanley’s _Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey_, first
edition, pp. 64–66.
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