Contents:

The Declaration of Arbroath.............................................................................................................................1

Anoymous ................................................................................................................................................1

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

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 vicegerent 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

dwellingplace 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

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

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.