The Declaration of Arbroath,
1320, English Translation
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, csating 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.