Overturned, Overturned

The last Feis of Tara was held in a.d. 560 under the sponsorship of King Diarmait mac Cerbaill, but by that point, the stone of destiny was no longer in Ireland.

The stone of destiny is the stone that the biblical patriarch Jacob set up as a pillar after a vision of God (Genesis 28:10-22). This stone remained with the Israelites for generations. (Its full story can be found in Chapter 6 of our book The Key of David; read it online at theTrumpet.com or order a free copy.)

Before Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, the Prophet Ezekiel foretold that God would overturn the stone three times before it would be erased (Ezekiel 21:27).

The first overturn had been overseen by the Prophet Jeremiah when he brought Tephi and the pillar stone to Ireland. That history is covered thoroughly in Part 1 of this book. Here we will briefly cover the history of the second and third overturns.

Overturned to Scotland

The second overturn of the stone of destiny brought it north into what we now call Scotland. This name discloses a remarkable Irish connection. In the Middle Ages, Ireland was called Scotia by the Romans, and its inhabitants were called Scots. Yet Scots referred properly to the Irish royals descended from the Heber Scot who settled in Scythia after the Exodus.

By the third century a.d., it appears the Irish kingdom had begun expanding into the western islands of north Britannia—west of the “Spine of Britain” in an area called Argyll (meaning “coast of the Gaels”). This region was ruled by the lords of Dunseverick, a fort on the northern coast of Ireland. They referred to the region—from northern Ireland to western Alba (Scotland)—as Dál Riata, or Dál Riada, literally “Riata’s portion.”

Riata was one of three princes born to King Conaire ii. Conaire’s wife was the daughter of High King Conn of the Hundred Battles, and Conaire himself traced his lineage back to one of Conn’s ancestors. This “second overturn” would be secured from Conaire’s descendants.

The descendants of Riata would rule Dál Riata—divided by the Irish Sea but governed from the Irish side—through the time of Riata’s great-great-grandson Erc.

Erc had three sons: Loarn, Fergus and Angus. Within three decades after their father’s death, they felt compelled to sail north and establish their colony’s rule in Alba. This migration occurred in a.d. 503. The first king to rule Dál Riata from that side of the sea was Erc’s firstborn, Loarn.

Loarn’s daughter Erica married back into the line of the Irish high kings, which is why King Muircheartach, son of Murieadhach, is sometimes called “mac Earc”—son of Earc (that being his mother Erica’s name). While Loarn managed Alba’s western shores, the seat of the Irish monarchy faced turmoil. In a.d. 508, King Lughaidh was struck by lightning and died. Thus ensued a five-year gap with no king in Tara, until Muircheartach mac Earc began ruling in a.d. 513. According to Geoffrey Keating, Muircheartach was the last high king of Ireland to be crowned on the stone of destiny.

The same year, a.d. 513, Loarn died, and his brother Fergus assumed the throne. Fergus is sometimes referred to as Fergus the Great. (He is often confused with a Fergus from about a century earlier and another Fergus in the time of Alexander the Great.) Fergus Mor was responsible for the second “overturn.”

So Fergus Mor and his grandnephew Muircheartach ascended to their respective thrones the same year. In a strange twist, though, Fergus asked Muircheartach for the coronation stone once he was finished with it. The Irish king sent it to him. Since the stone was associated with some of the pagan rituals practiced by Conn of the Hundred Battles, many Christians were uncomfortable with it; thus, Muircheartach did not value the stone very highly.

King Fergus, on the other hand, made it the centerpiece of his new kingdom in Argyll because he knew its true history!

It is important to know true history. Today, many Irish claim that the stone of destiny was never sent to Scotland. Rather, they believe it still stands as a pillar stone on top of Tara Hill. Yet the pillar stone currently on top of Tara Hill was put there in 1824 to commemorate a battle between British forces and Irish rebels 26 years earlier. This pillar stone used to stand in front of the Mound of the Hostages and was known as the “Bod Fhearghais.” In Irish legend, Fergus mac Róich was the foster father of Cú Chulainn, a semi-mythical warrior who struck the real stone of destiny with his sword after it failed to cry out under his protégé Lugaid Riab nDerg in the first century a.d. The real stone of destiny and the Bod Fhearghais have been confused ever since this time. However, King Fergus Mor of Scotland knew which stone was really Jacob’s pillar stone.

King Áedán’s Coronation

The unity of Dál Riata disintegrated after Fergus died and his descendants warred against each other. But circumstances took a turn for the better in a.d. 563 when Columba O’Néill, great-great-grandson of the Irish King Niall of the Nine Hostages, landed in Scotland. Columba was a Christian abbot in Ireland who wanted to become a missionary among the pagan Pictish tribes of Scotland.

King Conall mac Comgaill welcomed Columba, as the two men were distantly related. The king gave Columba the Isle of Iona so he could build an abbey for spreading literacy and training missionaries. Yet Columba’s plan to preach Christianity to the Picts was hampered by tribal infighting within Dál Riata.

When King Conall died, it looked like the kingdom might tear itself apart. Columba took it upon himself to intervene. First, he declared King Conall’s cousin Áedán mac Gabráin as his preferred king of Dál Riata. He had the stone of destiny moved from the Dál Riata capital of Dunadd to his abbey on Iona. Then, Columba and Prince Áedán summoned the clan leaders to Iona to witness a new coronation ceremony—taken straight from the pages of the Bible.

Inspired by King Solomon’s coronation, Columba seated Prince Áedán atop the stone of destiny, laid hands on him, recited his genealogy back to the high kings of Tara, and declared him king. None of King Áedán’s relatives challenged his authority once they saw that he had Columba’s backing. Áedán became one of the most powerful kings in the history of Dál Riata. The various Scottish tribes were so impressed by the majestic coronation that every king crowned on the stone of destiny in the 1,450 years since that day in a.d. 574 has used some variation of Columba’s ceremony.

With peace established, Columba turned his attention back to the Picts. He visited the pagan King Bridei mac Maelchon in his Highland fortress in Inverness and started preaching throughout the land of the Picts. The way he preached shows why King Fergus and his descendants valued the stone of destiny.

Many local traditions specify that Columba carried this stone with him on his missionary journeys, using it like a traveling altar. He did not view this stone as a pagan relic as the Catholics did; he knew it was Jacob’s pillar stone.

Many Irish annals refer to the stone of destiny, but only the medieval annals of Scotland specify that it is Jacob’s pillow. Many Picts converted to Christianity after hearing the message Columba preached about Jesus Christ and Jacob’s pillar stone.

These conversions laid the groundwork for the union, nearly three centuries later, of the kingdom of Dál Riata and the kingdom of the Picts under Kenneth mac Alpin. This famous king was the son of a Dál Riatan father and a Pictish mother. He moved the stone of destiny from Columba’s abbey to the Pictish city of Scone where it featured in subsequent Scottish coronations.

Davidic Revolution

King Kenneth was succeeded by his brother Donald, who was succeeded by Kenneth’s son Constantine. Constantine was followed by his brother Aed. The high kingship of Scotland continued to rotate among different branches of the Scottish royal family for many decades, until King Malcolm ii decided to adopt a primogeniture like the one in England, where the right of succession belonged to the reigning king’s firstborn son.

King Malcolm had no son, but he still passed over his relative Macbeth and picked his grandson Duncan to be king. This prompted Macbeth, who was the ruler of Moray, to secede from the kingdom. King Duncan led an army north to reconquer Moray, but died in the resulting battle. Macbeth then seized the kingship of Scotland.

A fictionalized account of this history is preserved in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, but the real story is tremendously significant.

Duncan’s son Malcolm fled to England. There he became even more committed to adopting English-style government practices. With help from the earl of Northumbria, Prince Malcolm retook Scotland from Macbeth’s stepson Lulach and was crowned on the stone of destiny.

King Malcolm iii later married an English princess named Margaret and had eight children. His reign was long but tumultuous. He was eventually murdered in an ambush in 1093. His youngest son, David, and his daughter Matilda had to flee to England.

In England, David learned Norman art, music and government. Matilda married King Henry i, the younger brother of King William, and David was an important official in King William’s court. This was valuable experience.

Henry later helped his brother-in-law David reclaim the Scottish throne. David successfully transformed Scotland from a tribal confederacy into a centralized kingdom that could vie with the kingdom of England for mastery of the Isles.

During the “Davidian Revolution,” King David and a group of Norman knights built castles, established a professional cavalry, and divided Scotland into states ruled by officials loyal to the king. These reforms weakened Scotland’s traditional clan structure and helped establish the kingdom as one governable nation.

David also built monasteries throughout Scotland to serve as centers of literacy, music and the arts. He never gained full control of the northern Highlands (which called itself the kingdom of Alba for another generation), but the rest of his kingdom experienced such a renaissance of art, government, music and trade that David is usually credited as the founder of modern Scotland. He paved the way for the third overturn of the stone of destiny by linking Scotland more closely to Norman England than to Gaelic Ireland.

Final Overturn

King David’s descendants ruled Scotland for many generations. But when King Alexander iii of Scotland died without a male heir, King Edward i of England tried to unite the thrones of the two kingdoms by arranging for his own son Edward ii to marry King Alexander’s young granddaughter Margaret. This plan failed when Margaret died of food poisoning on a boat trip from Norway.

After Margaret died, 13 Scottish nobles claimed the throne and asked King Edward i of England to help them decide who was the rightful king. Edward was a descendant of David’s sister Matilda, who in turn was from the line that sprang from Ireland’s Tephi. He was a Davidic king.

Edward agreed to pick a new king of Scotland, but only if that king would recognize him as the high king of the British Isles. The nobles of Scotland reluctantly agreed to these terms, and King Edward chose a man named John Balliol to be king.

King John soon sought to exert his independence, however. He made a secret deal with France behind Edward’s back. In 1296, King Edward i invaded Scotland, seized the stone of destiny, and moved it to Westminster Abbey. The stone was now the property of the English instead of the Scottish.

This was the third prophesied overturn of Ezekiel 21:27. And since King Edward was a descendant of the ancient Jewish King David, he now held Judah’s scepter.

King Edward i tried to conquer Scotland for the rest of his reign but was never able to overcome Scottish resistance.

The Scots chose another king named Robert, who was also of the line of David. But since the Scots no longer possessed the stone, their kings no longer sat on David’s throne.

Eventually, a king named James i would unite the thrones of England and Scotland, becoming the Lord Paramount of the British Isles. But Jacob’s pillar stone would never again be overturned while it remained the stone of destiny. It would remain in the kingdom of Great Britain until the day when, as Ezekiel prophesied, “it shall be no more” because the Messiah is about to return.

Continue Reading: Appendix D: Frederick Glover’s Error