In the early hours of Christmas Day 1950, a patrolling police officer found Kay Matheson and Ian Hamilton, two students from Glasgow University, locked in a passionate embrace inside their Ford Anglia.

That wasn’t so unusual for two students, but their car was parked outside Westminster Abbey and so the officer asked the couple what they were doing there at that hour of the morning.

Ian and Kay explained that they’d just arrived from Scotland and hadn’t been able to find a hotel. It all sounded innocent enough and, after sharing a cigarette, the officer sent them on their way, watching as the car disappeared towards Victoria.

He had no idea that hidden inside was a sizeable chunk of the “Stone of Destiny” – more formally, the Stone of Scone – which Hamilton had just stolen from the Abbey and, before the sun could properly rise on Christmas morning, he and two other students – Gavin Vernon and Alan Stuart – had stolen the remainder.

I thought about Kay, Ian, Gavin and Alan and wondered what they might make of 35-year-old Arnaud Harixcalde Logan, whose address is listed as Sydney, Australia, after he was arrested and charged with “malicious mischief” – in essence, vandalism – in an incident involving the stone at Perth Museum on July 12.

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The four Glasgow University students were all members of the Scottish Covenant Association which supported home rule for Scotland.

Their theft of the Stone of Scone, which Hamilton would later describe as a “liberation”, was therefore a........

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