Transcription and translation of Declaration of Arbroath, 6 April 1320 [2] (National Records of Scotland, SP13/7) (209KB PDF)
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Versions, copies and facsimiles
The document in National Records of Scotland is the "file copy" of the Declaration: the only version to survive in its original form. It was kept with the rest of the national records in Edinburgh Castle until the seventeenth century. When work was being done on the castle, the Declaration was taken for safekeeping to Tyninghame, the home of the official in charge of the records. While there it suffered damage through damp and it returned to the custody of the Deputy Clerk Register (the predecessor of the Keeper of the Records of Scotland [4]) in 1829. Conservation [5] staff at the NRS monitor the Declaration to ensure it survives for many centuries to come.
Detail of the Declaration of Arbroath showing damaged area, 6 April 1320
Mike Brooks © Queen’s Printer for Scotland, National Records of Scotland, SP13/7
Although the Declaration was damaged during its absence from Edinburgh Castle, the full text was known from an engraving made in the early eighteenth century, which was re-engraved around 1815 by William Home Lizars and Daniel Lizars.
Facsimile engraving of the Declaration by W & D Lizars, engraved around 1815,
published in Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland vol 1 (1844), p.474
The Declaration of Arbroath, 6 April 1320
Mike Brooks © Queen’s Printer for Scotland, National Records of Scotland, SP13/7
Downloadable Resource
You can find out more in National Records of Scotland's free booklet 'Declaration of Arbroath 700th Anniversary Booklet' in English [6] (1.02 MB PDF) or Gaelic [7] (1.01 MB PDF).
Further reading:
1. Sir James Fergusson, The Declaration of Arbroath (Edinburgh, 1970).
2. A. A. M. Duncan, 'The Making of the Declaration of Arbroath', in D. A. Bullough and R. L. Storey (eds.), The Study of Medieval Records, essays in honour of Kathleen Major, (Oxford, 1971), pp.174-188.
3. A. A. M. Duncan, The Nation of Scots and the Declaration of Arbroath (1320) (London, 1970).
4. E. J. Cowan, 'For Freedom Alone': The Declaration of Arbroath, 1320 (East Linton, 2003).
5. G. W. S. Barrow (ed.), The Declaration of Arbroath: History, Significance, Setting (Edinburgh, 2003).
6. G. W. S. Barrow, Robert the Bruce and the Community of the Realm (various editions from 1965).
See our research guides for more information about the state papers [8] in our collection. Copies of the Declaration of Arbroath can be purchased from our image gallery [9].