The Stone of Destiny
If you were a fan of Braveheart, the Oscar-rich epic about William Wallace’s fight to reclaim Scotland’s freedom from the English, you may remember that it didn’t win awards for accuracy.
I love the film, but it’s historical codswallop. The dates were wrong. Robert the Bruce wasn’t at the Battle of Falkirk. Prima nocta went out with the 4th century Romans, and Wallace’s fling with Edward I’s daughter-in-law never happened: in 1300 Wallace was 28 and Isabella was 5.
Two points.
One: Wallace WAS a genuine hero. Edward DID execute him, WAS a ratbag to the Scots, and in 1296 nicked their revered relic, The Stone of Scone—the Coronation Stone—and installed it in a throne in London’s Westminster Abbey. English kings crowned over it thereafter automatically became kings of Scotland as well. To the Scots, the theft symbolised their ongoing subjugation and loss of autonomy to the English.
Two: The Stone of Destiny, the true tale of how four Glasgow students stole the stone and returned it to Scotland in 1950, won’t sit, like Braveheart, on the list of the 10 Most Inaccurate Movies of All Time.
The four were led by law student Ian Hamilton, later a QC, on whose book the film was based. He even has a cameo appearance (he’s now 83). It’s a great story, a joyful coup for the underdog, and it comes straight from the horse’s mouth.
The Stone of Destiny is an unpretentious, light-hearted UK/Canada co-production with an enormous feel-good factor. Its critics say it’s a clichéd heist flick with little characterisation, but it’s hard to appreciate the context if you’re unfamiliar with the passionate nationalism of the Scots and the injustices that have fuelled it.
A desire to break into a cathedral and pinch a 458-pound pebble with little more than a crowbar and an overcoat makes perfect sense when you’re young, you need something to prove, and your national pride is in tatters. Hamilton, trainee teacher Kay Mathieson, and engineering students Gavin Vernon and Alan Stuart were all members of the Covenant Movement seeking Home Rule for Scotland.
“We were ordinary youngsters who took it to perk up ordinary people at a grim time for Scotland and they responded. If it wasnae for them we would have got the jail,” said Hamilton himself in a recent blog.
Others had tried to steal the stone and failed, but the foursome’s audacity and luck overcame false starts and farcical muddles to secure them a place in history. The effect on Scotland’s psyche was profound.
Director Charles Martin Smith wrote the screenplay, which might have had more grit in the hands of a Scots national, but this is energetic, witty, family-friendly fare with a history lesson attached.
“Smith has made it universal and forever,” said Hamilton. “In this film there are no car chases, no explosions, no swear words, no sex, there are no special effects, no guns ... It is about people being kind to one another in adversity and winning through for a high ideal. No wonder these hardened film moguls at Cannes stood and cheered and signed it up. They had seen the thing that the modern cinema has lost. They had seen the decency of young people trying to do something brave.”
The young cast gets great backup by Robert Carlyle, Brenda Fricker and the likeable and expressive Billy Boyd. Forget hobbits. Watch the scary Urban Ghost Story some time to appreciate his versatility.
Braveheart didn’t let the truth get in the way of a good story. Happily, sometimes the truth is a good enough tale all by itself.
Maria Polglase
