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The Declaration of Arbroath
6 April 1320
["Although the English armies under
Edward II were routed at Bannockburn in 1314 and by
1319, with the recapture of Berwick, effectively
expelled from Scottish soil, they continued to mount
attacks into Robert the Bruce's Scotland
over the succeeding years. The Pope had not accepted
Scottish independence, perhaps partially because
Robert the Bruce had been excommunicated for killing
John Comyn in a church in Dumfries in 1306 (Comyn had
formed an alliance with Edward, but perhaps had more
of a right to be King than Bruce). Thus the
Declaration of Arbroath was
prepared as a formal Declaration of Independence.
It was drawn up in Arbroath Abbey on the 6th April
1320, most likely by the Abbot, Bernard de Linton,
who was also the Chancellor of Scotland. The
Declaration urged the Pope to see things from a
Scottish perspective and not to take the English
claim on Scotland seriously. It used stong words,
indicating that without acceptance of the Scottish
case that the wars would continue and the resultant
deaths would be the responsibility of the Pope. The
Declaration was signed and bore the seals of 38 Scots
Lords. It was conveyed to Rome and the Pope accepted
the Scottish case." Courtesy Gateway to Scotland]
"It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor
honours that we are fighting, but for freedom --
for that alone, which no honest man gives up but
with life itself.."
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From
The Lion in the North: One
Thousand Years of Scotland's
History,
John Prebble, Penguin Books:
"The Declaration of
Arbroath was and has been unequalled in its
eloquent plea for the liberty of man. From the
darkness of medieval minds it shone a torch
upon future struggles which its signatories
could not have foreseen or understood. The
author of this noble Latin address is unknown,
though it is assumed to have been composed by
Bernard de Linton, Abbot of Arbroath and
Chancellor of Scotland. Above the seals of
eight earls and forty-five barons, it asked for
the Pope's dispassionate intervention in the
bloody quarrel between the Scots and the
English, and so that he might understand the
difference between the two its preamble gave
him a brief history of the former...
...two things make the
Declaration of Arbroath the most important
document in Scottish history.
Firstly it set the will
and the wishes of the people above the
King. Though they were bound to him 'both
by law and by his merits' it was so that their
freedom might be maintained. If he betrayed
them he would be removed and replaced.... This
unique relationship of king and people would
influence their history henceforward, and would
reach its climax in the Reformation and the
century following, when a people's Church would
declare and maintain its superiority over
earthly crowns.
Secondly, the manifesto
affirmed the nation's independence in a way no
battle could, and justified it with a truth
that is beyond nation and race. Man has a
right to freedom and a duty to defend it with
his life. The natural qualifications put upon
this by a medieval baron are irrelevant, as are
the reservations which slave-owning Americans
placed upon their declaration of independence.
The truth once spoken cannot be checked, the
seed once planted controls its own growth, and
the liberty which men secure for themselves
must be given by them to others, or it will be
taken as they took it. Freedom is a hardy
plant and must flower in equality and
brotherhood."
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To the most Holy Father and Lord in
Christ, the Lord John, by divine providence Supreme
Pontiff of the Holy Roman and Universal Church, his
humble and devout sons Duncan, Earl of Fife, Thomas
Randolph, Earl of Moray, Lord of Man and of Annandale,
Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March, Malise, Earl of
Strathearn, Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, William, Earl of
Ross, Magnus, Earl of Caithness and Orkney, and
William, Earl of Sutherland; Walter, Steward of
Scotland, William Soules, Butler of Scotland, James,
Lord of Douglas, Roger Mowbray, David, Lord of Brechin,
David Graham, Ingram Umfraville, John Menteith,
guardian of the earldom of Menteith, Alexander Fraser,
Gilbert Hay, Constable of Scotland, Robert Keith,
Marischal of Scotland, Henry St Clair, John Graham,
David Lindsay, William Oliphant, Patrick Graham, John
Fenton, William Abernethy, David Wemyss, William
Mushet, Fergus of Ardrossan, Eustace Maxwell, William
Ramsay, William Mowat, Alan Murray, Donald Campbell,
John Cameron, Reginald Cheyne, Alexander Seton, Andrew
Leslie, and Alexander Straiton, and the other barons
and freeholders and the whole community of the realm of
Scotland send all manner of filial reverence, with
devout kisses of his blessed feet.
Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and
from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find
that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has
been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from
Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the
Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of
time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere
could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous.
Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people
of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the
west where they still live today. The Britons they
first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and,
even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the
Danes and the English, they took possession of that
home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as
the historians of old time bear witness, they have held
it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom
there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of
their own royal stock, the line unbroken a single
foreigner.
The high qualities and deserts of these people, were
they not otherwise manifest, gain glory enough from
this: that the King of kings and Lord of lords, our
Lord Jesus Christ, after His Passion and Resurrection,
called them, even though settled in the uttermost parts
of the earth, almost the first to His most holy faith.
Nor would He have them confirmed in that faith by
merely anyone but by the first of His Apostles -- by
calling, though second or third in rank -- the most
gentle Saint Andrew, the Blessed Peter's brother, and
desired him to keep them under his protection as their
patron forever.
The Most Holy Fathers your predecessors gave careful
heed to these things and bestowed many favours and
numerous privileges on this same kingdom and people, as
being the special charge of the Blessed Peter's
brother. Thus our nation under their protection did
indeed live in freedom and peace up to the time when
that mighty prince the King of the English, Edward, the
father of the one who reigns today, when our kingdom
had no head and our people harboured no malice or
treachery and were then unused to wars or invasions,
came in the guise of a friend and ally to harass them
as an enemy. The deeds of cruelty, massacre, violence,
pillage, arson, imprisoning prelates, burning down
monasteries, robbing and killing monks and nuns, and
yet other outrages without number which he committed
against our people, sparing neither age nor sex,
religion nor rank, no one could describe nor fully
imagine unless he had seen them with his own eyes.
But from these countless evils we have been set free,
by the help of Him Who though He afflicts yet heals and
restores, by our most tireless Prince, King and Lord,
the Lord Robert. He, that his people and his heritage
might be delivered out of the hands of our enemies, met
toil and fatigue, hunger and peril, like another
Macabaeus or Joshua and bore them cheerfully. Him, too,
divine providence, his right of succession according to
or laws and customs which we shall maintain to the
death, and the due consent and assent of us all have
made our Prince and King. To him, as to the man by whom
salvation has been wrought unto our people, we are
bound both by law and by his merits that our freedom
may be still maintained, and by him, come what may, we
mean to stand.
Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree
to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of
England or the English, we should exert ourselves at
once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of
his own rights and ours, and make some other man who
was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as
but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any
conditions be brought under English rule. It is in
truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we
are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which
no honest man gives up but with life itself.
Therefore it is, Reverend Father and Lord, that we
beseech your Holiness with our most earnest prayers and
suppliant hearts, inasmuch as you will in your
sincerity and goodness consider all this, that, since
with Him Whose Vice-Regent on earth you are there is
neither weighing nor distinction of Jew and Greek,
Scotsman or Englishman, you will look with the eyes of
a father on the troubles and privation brought by the
English upon us and upon the Church of God. May it
please you to admonish and exhort the King of the
English, who ought to be satisfied with what belongs to
him since England used once to be enough for seven
kings or more, to leave us Scots in peace, who live in
this poor little Scotland, beyond which there is no
dwelling-place at all, and covet nothing but our own.
We are sincerely willing to do anything for him, having
regard to our condition, that we can, to win peace for
ourselves.
This truly concerns you, Holy Father, since you see the
savagery of the heathen raging against the Christians,
as the sins of Christians have indeed deserved, and the
frontiers of Christendom being pressed inward every
day; and how much it will tarnish your Holiness's
memory if (which God forbid) the Church suffers eclipse
or scandal in any branch of it during your time, you
must perceive. Then rouse the Christian princes who for
false reasons pretend that they cannot go to help of
the Holy Land because of wars they have on hand with
their neighbours. The real reason that prevents them is
that in making war on their smaller neighbours they
find quicker profit and weaker resistance. But how
cheerfully our Lord the King and we too would go there
if the King of the English would leave us in peace, He
from Whom nothing is hidden well knows; and we profess
and declare it to you as the Vicar of Christ and to all
Christendom.
But if your Holiness puts too much faith in the tales
the English tell and will not give sincere belief to
all this, nor refrain from favouring them to our
prejudice, then the slaughter of bodies, the perdition
of souls, and all the other misfortunes that will
follow, inflicted by them on us and by us on them,
will, we believe, be surely laid by the Most High to
your charge.
To conclude, we are and shall ever be, as far as duty
calls us, ready to do your will in all things, as
obedient sons to you as His Vicar; and to Him as the
Supreme King and Judge we commit the maintenance of our
cause, casting our cares upon Him and firmly trusting
that He will inspire us with courage and bring our
enemies to nought.
May the Most High preserve you to his Holy Church in
holiness and health and grant you length of days.
Given at the monastery of Arbroath in Scotland on the
sixth day of the month of April in the year of grace
thirteen hundred and twenty and the fifteenth year of
the reign of our King aforesaid.
Endorsed: Letter directed to our Lord the Supreme
Pontiff by the community of Scotland.
Additional names written on some of the seal tags:
Alexander Lamberton, Edward Keith, John Inchmartin,
Thomas Menzies, John Durrant, Thomas Morham (and one
illegible).
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