Letter from the Scottish Nobles to the Pope
Convinced by this conduct, that their enemies had been busy in misrepresenting at the Roman court their causes of quarrel with England, the Scottish nobility assembled in parliament at Aberbrothock,§ and with consent of the king, the barons, freeholders, and whole community of Scotland, directed a letter or manifesto to the pope, in a strain different from that servility of address to which the spiritual sovereign had been accustomed.After an exordium, in which they shortly allude to the then commonly believed traditions regarding the emigration of the Scots from Scythia, their residence in Spain, and subsequent conquest of the Pictish kingdom; to their long line of a hundred and thirteen kings, (many of whom are undoubtedly fabulous;) to their conversion to Christianity by St Andrew, and the privileges which they had enjoyed at the hands of their spiritual father, as the flock of the brother of St Peter, they describe, in the following energetic terms, the unjust aggression of Edward the First:—
"Under such free protection did we live, until Edward king of England, and father of the present monarch, covering his hostile designs under the specious disguise of friendship and alliance, made an invasion of our country at the moment when it was without a king, and attacked an honest and unsuspicious people, then but little experienced in war, The insults which this prince has heaped upon us, the slaughters and devas* tations which he has committed; his imprisonments of prelates, his burning of monasteries, his spoliations and murder of priests, and the other enormities of which he has been guilty, can be rightly described, or even conceived, by none but an eye-.witness. From these innumerable evils have we been freed, under the help of that God who woundeth and who maketh whole, by our most valiant prince and king, Lord Robert, who, like a second Maccabaeus, or Joshua, hath cheerfully endured all labour and weariness, and exposed himself to every species of danger and privation, that he might rescue from the hands of the enemy his ancient people and rightful inheritance, whom also Divine Providence, and the right of succession according to those laws and customs, which we will maintain to the death, as well as the common consent of us all, have made our prince and king. To him are we bound, both by his own merit and by the law of the land, and to him, as the saviour of our people, and the guardian of our liberty, are we unanimously determined to adhere; but if he should desist from what he has begun, and should show an inclination to subject us or our kingdom to the King of England, or to his people, then we declare, that we will use our utmost effort to expel him from the throne, as our enemy, and the eubverter of his own and of our right, and we will choose another king to rule over us, who will be able to defend us; for as long as a hundred Scotsmen are left alive, we will never be subject to the dominion of England. It is not for glory, riches, or honour, that we fight, but for that liberty which no good man will consent to lose but with his life.
"Wherefore, most reverend father, we humbly pray, and from our hearts beseech your Holiness to consider, that you are the vicegerent of Him with whom there is no respect of persons, Jews or Greeks, Scots or English; and turning your paternal regard upon the tribulations brought upon us and the Church of God by the English, to admonish the King of England that he should be content with what he possesses, seeing that England of old was enough for seven, or more kings, and not to disturb our peace in this small country, lying on the utmost boundaries of the habitable earth, and whose inhabitants desire nothing but what is their own."
The barons proceed to say, that they are willing to do everything for peace which may not compromise the freedom of their constitution and government; and they exhort the pope to procure the peace of Christendom, in order to the removal of all impediments in the way of a crusade against the infidels; declaring the readiness with which both they and their king would undertake that sacred warfare, if the King of England would cease to disturb them. Their conclusion is exceedingly spirited:
"If," say they, "your Holiness do not sincerely believe these things, giving too implicit faith to the tales of the English, and on this ground shall not cease to favour them in their designs for our destruction, be well assured that the Almighty will impute to you that loss of life, that destruction of human souls, and all those various calamities which our inextinguishable hatred against the English, and their warfare against us, must necessarily produce. Confident that we now are, and shall ever, as in duty bound, remain obedient sons to you, as God's vicegerent, we commit the defence of our cause to that God, as the great King and Judge, placing our confidence in him, and in thefirmhope that hewill endow us with strength, and confound our enemies; and may the Almighty long preserve your Holiness in health."
This memorable letter is dated at Aberbrothock, on the 6th of April 1320, and it is signed by eight earls and thirty-one barons, amongst whom we find the great officers, the high-steward, the seneschal, the constable, and the marshal, with the barons, freeholders, and whole community of Scotland.