6th
April 1320
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-gerent 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).
A
poster and leaflet
published by the HMSO in 1995,
UK (Her Majesty's Stationnery Office) - currently out of
print.
The Declaration of Arbroath
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