Motion S5M-00726: Declaration of Arbroath

That the Parliament welcomes the awarding of UNESCO Memory of the World status to the Declaration of Arbroath; understands that the letter written to the Pope in 1320 was a crucial part of a wider diplomatic campaign to assert the legitimacy of King Robert the Bruce and the independence of Scotland in the context of the Anglo-Scottish wars of independence; notes the significant involvement of Bernard of Kilwinning, then Chancellor of Scotland and Abbot of Abroath, who is buried in Kilwinning Abbey, in the government of Scotland during this period and in the drafting of this document, and recognises the importance of the Declaration of Arbroath to Scotland’s history, as well as to wider British, European and world history, as a remarkably early expression of contractual monarchy and a challenge to the divine right of kings.