The debt Scotland owes to Kay Matheson

It was, as John MacCormick, then one of the most senior figures in the SNP, remarked, the stuff of "sheer romance". At one point, Mr MacCormick had the Stone in his keeping, in a flat at the west end of Glasgow, where it was deposited in two lumps and was subsequently repaired. Mr MacCormick had been sceptical about the plot but was persuaded by the probity and sincerity of the conspirators – Ms Matheson was the driver of the getaway car. Nevertheless, he was keen not to alienate Scottish opinion which was beginning to view the idea of independence with more seriousness than it had hitherto been accorded.

Such scepticism was understandable. It's perhaps true to say that the nascent nationalist movement had among its membership more than its fair share of numpties and bampots. On the dottier wing was the Hartlepool-born novelist Compton Mackenzie who, abetted by Hugh MacDiarmid, hoped to form Clann Albain (Children of Alba), pledging to do all they could to wrest power from London. Among the schemes they mooted was the occupation of Edinburgh Castle or the island of Rhum, which couldn't have been too difficult. Apparently, they also considered seizing the Stone of Destiny and one wishes they'd at least made an attempt, though how Mackenzie and MacDiarmid – who owed more to Morecambe and Wise than to Bonnie and Clyde – thought they would get away with it heaven alone knows.

Still, Mackenzie put the notion into his 1945 novel The North Wind of Love, which may well have inspired Matheson and her chums, Ian Hamilton, Gavin Vernon and Alan Stuart. Though all of them were ardent nationalists they were not the kind to resort to antics designed to harm others. Rather their aim was to draw attention with wit, humour and imagination to a cause which they believed had stalled. As Mr MacCormick later related: "They were not people in the wild and irresponsible fringe of the Nationalist movement, but good and steady supporters of the [Scottish] Covenant who were impatient with orthodox political methods."

From that it may be implied that there was among the nationalists in those days a number of people who fall into the swivel-eyed category. Later on, in the 1970s, the SNP's enemies coined the fatuous phrase "tartan terrorists" and tried desperately to draw analogies with Nazism and trouble-torn Ireland. As Neal Ascherson observed in 1973: "Few days go by without a reader's letter or political speech which accuses the SNP of either fascism or the intention to use the bomb and the Kalashnikov."

In fact, the case file on nationalist-inspired violence and extremism is remarkable for its emptiness. On the contrary the hallmark of the independence movement is the reasonableness, intelligence and sensitivity with which it has articulated its case. Words, not bullets, are what Alex Salmond and other prominent SNP figures hope will persuade the electorate to vote yes in 2014. This has taken patience and no small amount of tongue-biting. For the slurs still come, as they have done for instance since Mr Salmond waved a Saltire at Wimbledon in celebration of the first Scottish men's champion at Wimbledon since 1896. It was, supposedly, a political act, which makes one wonder what the fluttering of the Union Flag signifies.

To maintain one's dignity amidst such provocation demonstrates that the brand of nationalism on offer to Scots is markedly different from that touted elsewhere, be it across the Irish Sea, in the former Yugoslavia and virtually anywhere you care to mention in the Middle East. It is, one likes to think, a typically Scottish way of engineering a revolution, for which we owe Kay Matheson and her chums a debt of gratitude.