In 1977 Grant Simpson published a seminal article in the Scottish
Historical Review: which asked if 'anything conceivably new can be said
about a document so well known in Scotland as the Declaration of
Arbroath?' The contributors to this volume demonstrate that there can.
The text of the Declaration, written in 1320, followed closely an Irish
prototype and was structured in the fashion that was expected at the
papal court, where the letter was sent. It drew heavily on political
ideologies and legal concepts with which English and continental
intellectuals were familiar. And it was brought to papal attention
through diplomatic means and practices which were commonly understood
across Europe. Although the Declaration disappeared from political
discourse in the centuries which immediately followed its dispatch, its
rediscovery from the later seventeenth century is traced in hitherto
unprecedented depth. Its relevance was not just to Scotland. The
question of whether it influenced the American Declaration of
Independence has oft been mooted but is here closely investigated. Today
the Declaration remains a controversial document, inspirational to many,
misappropriated by others, and even feared by some.