To our Lord and Very Holy Father in
Christ, Lord John, the Supreme Pontiff, by God’s Providence, of the Most
Holy Roman and Catholic Church, his humble and devoted sons [here follow the
names of the Nobles and Commons in Parliament assembled] and
other barons and freeholders, with the whole Commons of the Kingdom
of Scotland. With all filial reverence devoutly do we kiss your blessed
feet.
From the deeds alike and the books of our
forefathers, we understand, most Holy Lord and Father, that among other
noble nations our own, the Scottish, grows famous for many men of wide
renown. The which Scottish nation, journeying from Greater Scythia by the
Tyrrhene Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, could not in any place or time or
manner be overcome by the barbarians, though long dwelling in Spain among
the fiercest of them. Coming thence, twelve hundred years after the transit
of Israel, with many victories and with many toils they won that habitation
in the West, which, though the Britons have been driven out, the Picts
effaced, and the Norwegians, Danes and English have often assailed it, they
hold now, in freedom from all vassalage: and as the old historians bear
witness, have ever so held it. In this kingdom have reigned a hundred and
thirteen kings of their own Blood Royal, and no man foreign has been among
them. Of their merits and their noble qualities we need say no more, for
they are bright enough by this alone, that though they were placed in the
furthest ends of the earth, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the King of Kings,
called them among the first to His most firm faith, after His Passion and
His Resurrection. Nor did He choose to confirm them in the Lord’s Faith by
any one less than His own first Apostle (although he stands second or third
in order of rank) the most gracious Andrew, brother of Peter’s self, whom
ever since he has established their Patron.
Bearing all these things carefully in
mind, those holiest of fathers, your predecessors, adorned and fortified
this kingdom and people, as belonging specially to Peter’s brother, with
many favours and many privileges. Thus our nation till now has lived under
their protection in peace and quiet, till the Magnificent Prince, Edward
King of the English, the father of the Edward that now is, did, under cover
of alliance and friendship, invade and occupy as an enemy our kingdom and
people, who then had no head, who had in mind no evil towards him, and who
then were unused to war or sudden invasion. What that king has done in
wrongs and slaughter and violence, in imprisonings of the leaders of the
Church, in burning and looting of religious houses and the massacre of their
communities, with his other outrages on the Scottish people (sparing nor sex
nor age nor priestly orders) is something that is not to be comprehended
save by those who know these things from their own experience.
Yet, at last, by His help Who heals and
sains the wounded, we are freed from these innumerable evils by our most
valiant Sovereign, King, and Lord, King Robert, who to set free his heritage
and his people faced, like a new Maccabeus or Joshua, with joyful heart,
toil, weariness, hardship and dangers. By the Providence of God, the right
of succession, those laws and customs which we are resolved to defend even
with our lives, and by our own just consent, he is our King:
and to him who has brought salvation to
his people through the safeguarding of our liberties, as much by his own
deserving as by his rights, we hold and choose in all things to adhere. Yet
Robert himself, should he turn aside from the task that he has begun, and
yield Scotland or us to the English King and people, we should cast out as
the enemy of us all, as subverter of our rights and of his own, and should
choose another king to defend our freedom: for so long as a hundred of us
are left alive, we will yield in no least way to English dominion. We fight
not for glory nor for wealth nor honours; but only and alone we fight for
freedom, which no good man surrenders but with his life.
Because of these things, most reverend
Father and Lord, praying earnestly from our hearts that before Him as Whose
Vicar on Earth you reign, before Him to whom there is but a single weight,
Who has one law for Jew and Greek, and for Scots and English - before Him
will with honesty consider the manifold anguish and tribulation which we and
Church have suffered through the English, and will look upon us with a
father’s eyes. We pray you have to admonish the King of England (to whom
his own possessions may well suffice, since England of old was enough for
seven Kings or more) that he should leave us in peace in our little
Scotland, since we desire no more than is our own, and have dwelling-place
beyond our borders: and we on our part, for sake of peace, are willing to do
all within our power.
Most Holy Father, it is your part to do
this, or surrender to the barbarity of the heathen, let loose for the sins
of Christians on the Faithful, and daily forcing the bounds of Christendom,
and you know it would mar the security of your fame if you looked unmoved on
anything which in your time should bring dishonour on any part of the
Church. May Your Holiness therefore admonish those Christian princes who
falsely claim that their own wars with their neighbours now hinder them from
relieving the Holy Land: though indeed they are hindered only by their
belief that they will find more profit and less toil in crushing neighbours
smaller than themselves, who appear to them also weaker than themselves. He
Who know all knows that if the King of the English would leave us in peace,
we and our own Lord King would go joyfully thither: which thing we solemnly
testify and declare to the Vicar of Christ and to all Christian people. But
if too readily, or insincerely, you put your faith in what the English have
told you, and continue to favour them, to our confounding, then indeed shall
slaying of bodies, yea and of souls, and all those evils which they shall do
to us, or we to them, be charged to your account by the Most High.
We are always bound to you, as God’s
Viceregent, to please you by a son’s obedience in all things. We remit our
cause to the Highest King and Judge, casting our care on Him, in the hope
and faith that He will grant to us both strength and valour, and bring about
our enemies’ overthrow.
May the Most High preserve for many years
Your Serene Highness to His Holy Church
Given at the Monastery of Aberbrothock in
Scotland the sixth day of April in the year of Grace one thousand three
hundred and twenty, and in the fifteenth year of the King named above.