Thread by @GrayConnolly

Good morning all & OTD in 1320, the Declaration of Arbroath was made by the Scots Nobility & Clergy to the Pope: "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 whole Declaration of Arbroath (1320) is worth reading as a statement of the rights conferred by God & natural law upon all people #Scotland #Arbroath

webarchive.nrscotland.gov.uk/20170106021747… …

"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." #Scotland #Arbroath

"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."
[*Protestants take note here]
#Scotland #Arbroath

"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."
#Scotland #Arbroath

"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...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."

The Declaration of Arbroath is the Scots' greatest contribution to civilisation, public law and government, and deserves to be at least as well known as Magna Carta. #Scotland #Aye #Arbroath