Note 62 — INTRODUCTION.

This noble document was signed by eight earls and thirty-one barons of Scotland, at the abbey of Aberbrothock on the 6th April 1320. After asserting the legitimate claims of King Robert the Bruce, and narrating his struggles in the cause of Scottish independence, it goes on to say that “If he were to desist from what he has begun, wishing to subject us or our kingdom to the King of England or the English, we would immediately endeavour to expel him as our enemy, and the subverter of his own rights and ours, and make another king who should be able to defend us. For so long as a hundred remain alive, we never will in any degree be subject to the dominion of the English. Since not for glory, riches, nor honour, we fight, but for liberty alone, which no good man loses but with his life.” The duplicate, preserved in the General Register House, is printed in facsimile in the National Manuscripts of Scotland, published under the superintendence of the Lord Clerk Register.