Arbroath Abbey ***
Region: Perth(shire), Angus & Dundee
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Description:
Arbroath Abbey, founded in 1178, has great significance in Scottish history. It was here that the Declaration of Arbroath (Scotland's Declaration of Independence) was written and signed on the 6th April 1320. The document was composed by the Abbot of Arbroath and was signed by 39 Scottish Barons and Earls. The Declaration was written, 6 years after the Battle of Bannockburn, as a letter of petition to Pope John XXII, requesting that he recognise Scotland's historical right to be an independent nation. The Declaration of Arbroath is a stirring and inspiring document for Scots as it carries the following promise:
"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."
The Declaration was written in Latin and was sealed by eight earls and about forty barons.
On the European front, by 1320 Scottish relations with the papacy had been in crisis after the Scots had defied papal efforts to establish a truce with England. When the pope then excommunicated Robert I and three of his barons, the Scots sent the Declaration of Arbroath as part of a diplomatic counter-offensive. As a result the pope wrote to Edward II urging him to make peace, but it was not until 1328 that Scotland's independence was finally acknowledged.