29. ANGLO-SCOTTISH RELATIONS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY: THE DECLARATION OF ARBROATH (1320)
INTRODUCTION
Perhaps inspired by the Remonstrance of the Irish Chiefs, the peers of the realm of Scotland took it upon themselves to write their own (much shorter) letter to Pope John XXII petitioning his intervention in the ongoing war between England and Scotland. The document was probably drafted by Abbot Bernard of Arbroath Abbey and written in the abbey’s scriptorium. It outlines the “historical” reasons for Scotland’s independence from England at a time when the independence of Scotland—and the legitimacy of its king, Robert I—was contested. The papacy had sided with King Edward I of England in declaring Scotland subordinate to the English Crown and had also excommunicated Robert Bruce in 1306 for the murder of JOHN III COMYN OF BADENOCH. In this, as in other documents identifying nationalist reasons for independence of the same era, such as the Remonstrance of a few years before, the focus is on both a heroic mythic past that validates the claim to independence and on the injustices of rule by a foreign power.
KEEP IN MIND AS YOU READ
The presentation of a long history of independence and of origins from a mythic Roman, Trojan, or Greek past for the contemporary population and its culture were common tropes in petitions against an invading power. This can be seen in the protests of the Welsh princes against English encroachment, as well as in the Irish and Scottish examples seen here. This “Declaration” is also touted by modern-day Scots as the foundation of their independence and sovereignty: a kind of medieval declaration of independence. Indeed, there is some evidence that Thomas Jefferson was familiar with this document and that it influenced his drafting of the Declaration of Independence of the American colonies in 1776.
Document 1: The Declaration of Arbroath, April 6, 1320 (15 Robert I)
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, Marshal of Scotland, Henry St Clair, John Graham, David Lindsay, William Oliphant, Patrick Graham, John Fenton, William Abernethy, David Wemyss, William Mushet, Fergus of Ardossan, Eustace Maxwell, William Ramsay, William Mowat, Alan Murray, Donald Campbell, John Cameron, Reginald Cheyne, Alexander Seton, Andrew Leslie, and Alexander Staiton, 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 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 [by] a single foreigner. The high qualities … 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 by the first of His Apostles … 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 favors 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 [I], the father of the one who reigns today, when our kingdom had no head and our people harbored 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, Kind 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 our laws and customs which 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, or riches, nor honors 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, … [that] 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, … 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. … [The author declares that the pope should demand that all aggressors go on Crusade to the Holy Land instead of attacking their smaller and weaker neighbors.] 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 favoring 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 naught. May the Most High preserve you in his Holy Church in holiness and health and grant you length of days.
Source: The Declaration of Arbroath. 1320. Translated by John Prebble. Reprinted with permission from Jan Prebble. Accessed online at http:www.constitution.org/scot/arbroath.htm
AFTERMATH
Unlike the Remonstrance, Pope John XXII did respond to the Declaration and the letter from King Robert Bruce that accompanied it. He lifted the ban of excommunication on the king (who no doubt was compelled to do penance for the murder of his competition) and urged the kings of England and Scotland to meet and enact a peace treaty between them. Edward II was uninterested in making peace, especially after the humiliating defeat at Bannockburn, and a treaty—that of Northampton—was not enacted until 1328 by the regency council of King Edward III following the deposing of Edward II. Even this treaty did not settle the conflict between the kingdoms, as it demanded the forfeiture of Scottish estates by nobles who were loyal to England. King Edward III, after he attained his majority in 1330, re-engaged the Bruce kings in a second “Scottish War of Independence.” A final treaty between the two kingdoms was not enacted until 1357, with the Treaty of Berwick, in which the kings of England relinquished their claim to controlling the throne of Scotland. Edward III, however, never returned the Stone of Scone, the traditional coronation seat of Scottish kings, which had been taken by King Edward I in 1296.
ASK YOURSELF
Why would the pope respond to this petition when he did not respond to the Remonstrance?
What is the role of ethnic or national identity in formulating a protest against foreign influence?
Why did the Scots nobles consider it necessary to write this petition to the pope?
TOPICS TO CONSIDER
Compare the Remonstrance and the Declaration of Arbroath.
Analyze the ways in which the English kings are presented in the document and compare them to the ways in which Scotland and its king are presented.
Compare the Declaration of Arbroath and the Declaration of Independence (1776) and consider how Jefferson might have been influenced in his drafting of the latter document.
Further Information
Menache, Sophia. “The Failure of John XXII’s Policy toward France and England: Reasons and Outcomes, 1316–1334.” Church History 55, no. 4 (1986): 423–437.
Simpson, Grant G. “The Declaration of Arbroath Revitalised.” The Scottish Historical Review 56, no. 161, pt. 1 (1977): 11–33.