The Declaration of Arbroath

Sir Patrick Graham's son, Sir David Graham of Kincardine (born 1260) was captured and taken to England as a prisoner-of-war. He was released a year later on condition that he would fight for Edward I in foreign wars.

He gratefully returned to Scotland, where the new king, Robert the Bruce rewarded his “good and faithful service” with several land grants. Sir David also traded his holdings in Dunbartonshire for lands in Old Montrose in Forfarshire.

Mugdock Castle in Old Montrose. Source: Pinterest.com 

At this place and time, loyalties slid around as easily as carved figurines on a chessboard. And the more Sir David dealt with the English invaders, the angrier he got.

In 1320, along with fifty other “magnates and nobles”, he signed the Declaration of Arbroath. It was sent to Pope John XXII and was nothing less than an avowal of Scottish independence. In part it reads, “…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.”

Believing he was ending hostilities, Sir David was a guarantor of a treaty with England in 1322. But the unstable and ineffective King Edward II declared the treaty illegal and downright treasonous. It took a few more years, and the loss of many more lives, for “proud Edward” to “think again,” withdraw his troops, and forsake all pretenses to the Scottish throne.