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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.
Declaration of Arbroath in Latin
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