Clergy with crozier, paterissa, pastoral staff at Arbroath, Scotland, UK 6th April, 2014. Bishop's staff, performers and re-enactors at the Scottish Homecoming event 'The Declaration of Arbroath held at Arboath Abbey on Scotland's Tartan Day. The Nobles of Scotland, assembled in the ruins of Arbroath Abbey to commemorate the signing of the Declartion of Arbroath in 1320.
The Declaration of Arbroath is a declaration of Scottish independence, made in 1320. It is in the form of a letter submitted to Pope John XXII, dated 6 April 1320, intended to confirm Scotland's status as an independent, sovereign state and defending Scotland's right to use military action when unjustly attacked. Generally believed to have been written in the Arbroath Abbey by Bernard of Kilwinning, then Chancellor of Scotland and Abbot of Arbroath and sealed by fifty-one magnates and nobles, the letter is the sole survivor of three created at the time. The others were a letter from the King of Scots, Robert I, and a letter from four Scottish bishops which all presumably made similar points. The Declaration was part of a broader diplomatic campaign which sought to assert Scotland's position as an independent kingdom, rather than being a feudal land controlled by England's Norman kings, as well as lift the excommunication of .Robert the Bruce. The Pope had recognised Edward I of England's claim to overlordship of Scotland in 1305 and Bruce was excommunicated by the Pope for murdering John Comyn before the altar in Greyfriars Church in Dumfries in 1306. "For, so long as a hundred remain alive, we will never in any degree be subject to the dominion of the English. Since not for glory, riches or honours do we fight, but for freedom alone, which no man loses but with his life."
Size: 3072px × 2048px
Location: Arbroath, Scotland, UK
Photo credit: © MediaWorldImages / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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