Well itâs April 6th today and our American friends are celebrating Tartan Day, Â do you know the reason why the US picked this day? Â Well arguably our most famous historical document The Declaration of Arbroath is dated 6 April 1320. Â
 âIt 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.â
 Like the American Declaration of Independence, which is partially based on it, it is seen by many as the founding document of the Scottish nation. The Declaration is a Latin letter which was sent to Pope John XXII in April/May 1320. It was most likely drafted in the scriptorium of Arbroath Abbey by Abbot Bernard on behalf of the nobles and barons of Scotland. It was one of three letters sent to the Pope in Avignon, the other two being from King Robert Bruce himself and from four Scottish bishops, attempting to abate papal hostility. The document received the seals of several Scottish barons and it then was taken to the papal court at Avignon in France by Sir Adam Gordon. The Scots clergy had produced not only one of the most eloquent expressions of nationhood, but the first expression of the idea of a contractual monarchy. Here is the critical passage in question:
âYet if he (Bruce) 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 who was well able to defend us 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.â The threat to drive Bruce out if he ever sold Scotland to English rule was a fantastic bluff. There was nobody else to take his place. The point is that the nobles and clergy are not basing their argument to the pope on the traditional notion of the Divine Rights of Kings. Bruce is King first and foremost because the nation chose him, not God, and the nation would just as easily choose another if they were betrayed by the King. The explanation also neatly covers the fact that Bruce had usurped John Balliolâs rightful kingship in the first place and the Declaration was telling the Pope, we support Bruce, Balliol can bolt! Of course  it does say much more than that before I start another war.
Any way in spite of all possible motivations for its creation, the Declaration of Arbroath, under the extraordinary circumstances of the Wars of Independence, was a prototype of contractual kingship in Europe.
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