I'm Bruce Fummey, and this is Arbroath Abbey. It's a place that every Scot or child of the
Scottish diaspora should visit. You see it's where our origin story was written.
Every culture has an origin story. Modern nation states, most famously the USA,
have a Declaration of Independence, and here in 1320 AD is where our origin story
was wrapped inside a Declaration of Independence. Oh politics, politics! Stop your nonsense,
because if you bear with me, today I'm going to present an idea about that origin story
and the Declaration of Arbroath that you've probably never considered before. Until last week,
I know that I hadn't. So if you're interested in the people, places and events in Scottish history, then
click the subscribe button at the bottom right of the screen. In the meantime, let me tell you a story.
I know a little bit about lots of different parts of Scottish history,
but to give you access to more knowledgeable folk than me, I've started monthly chats with people
who have dug deep into specific areas of Scottish history. My Patreon members send in questions and
I put these questions to a specialist, and so last week I had a chat with a guy called Stuart McHardy.
Now he's written more than 30 books about ancient Scottish history, heritage and storytelling. He is
really interesting and an hour and 15-minute interview will be available to the Patreon members on their site
this week, but during that chat, he made a very interesting point that I thought was worth
sharing with everyone, and it relates to the origin story of Scotland written here at Arbroath Abbey
in 1320 AD. Now I know that some of you are steeped in Scottish history, but some are internationals
who are trying to get a handle on where their ancestors have come from. Some folk watch with
our bairns (children), who are learning about Scottish history in a way that we never did at school, so
if the know it alls can just play in the sand pit, while I explain the Declaration of Arbroath to the new
kids. If you are one of those new bairns, then, all right wee man, oh that's a bit sexist all right hen,
God, no lassie, a dammit, little person, Kiwi, Aussie, Canuk, that's what they call Canadians you know?
The Declaration of Arbroath was a letter written to Pope John the 22nd. Of course it's taken on way
more significance than that now. You see the letter was intended to persuade the Pope of Scotland's
right to independence. Six years earlier in 1314, Robert the Bruce had defeated the English at the
Battle of Bannockburn. Now there will be people in the comment section complaining about using
the terms Scottish and English because of the role of Norman nobility on both sides of the border, side
switching, and feudal loyalty over identity, and all that, I know. The point is, that this letter, this
Declaration of Arbroath, sets out in writing what Robert the Bruce had been trying to do, in creating
the idea of Scotland as a nation, and yes he had selfish intentions, and he killed a guy in a church
and he got excommunicated, and he was brutal to some people, and his ancestor, and you were coming. I know,
but he was a towering figure in our history, his face is on the banknotes, and he could talk to spiders.
When does an arachnophile ever get a break in this town? The problem with Scottish history, is that
people can't let go of current politics. I remember in the first independence referendum, Alistair
Darling, he was the leader of the NO campaign, he denigrated nationalists because they harked back
700 years to this founding Declaration of Arbroath as part of their belief
in Scottish independence, and of course he's right. There are so many 21st Century reasons for
Scottish independence, that nobody needs to hark back to the Declaration of Arbroath you see. Now
if you believe the opinion polls, and I've just upset half the Scottish viewers, but don't worry,
if you stick with me, I'm going to upset the other half in a minute. You cut and you choose.
So why write to the Pope at all? For that I need to take you back to 751 AD, not here, but on mainland
Europe. Pope Zachary was under pressure from Lombardy in the north of Italy. In what we'd
call France, Pepin, son of Charles Martell, the hero who'd turned back the Muslim tide, had a right-hand
man who was an Irish monk. This Irish monk used writings by an earlier monk at Iona of all places,
to suggest that Pepin would increase his status and authority, if he was anointed by the Pope.
Now the pope wants protection, Pepin wants anointing. What are the chances? This was the
first Christian King to be anointed, and the bond between the church and state increased the power
and influence of both; the Pope gets military protection and Pepin gets lubed up with holy oil.
Three years later, that Pope's successor travelled all the way to Paris to re-anoint Pepin and anoint
his son Charlemagne as his successor. From that time onwards, the anointing with papal holy oil,
conferred moral status on a Christian King, and Robert the Bruce wanted some of that holy oil
to confirm 'freedom' for himself, and future Scottish kings, hence the letter to the Pope.
In the Declaration, the Scots nobility, some with very Norman sounding names, and King
Robert looking over their shoulders, set out how we got here, what we've had to put
up with, from our southern neighbours and what might happen if the Pope took the wrong side.
Now of course there were wonderful pieces of high flowing rhetoric that some viewers will know by
heart, of Robert the Bruce. He, that his people and his heritage might be delivered out of the hands
of our enemies, met toil and fatigue, hunger and peril, like another Maccabaeus or Joshua and bore
them cheerfully, yet if he should give up what he's begun and agree to make us or our kingdoms subject
to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as an
enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man, who's well able to defend
us our King, for as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions
give in to English rule. It is in truth, not for glory, nor for riches, nor honours that
we're fighting, but for freedom. For that alone which no honest man gives up but with life itself.
I have it on good authority, that that'll be playing on a loop, in all the voting
centres for the second referendum. So here's where I upset the other half of the audience,
because the Declaration of Arbroath is riddled with hypocrisy.
Of course it is, it's Medieval propaganda. On the one hand, it spreads the thickest layer
of obsequious grovelling that you've ever seen in a suck-up sandwich, then warns the Pope of the bloodshed
that will be on his hands if he doesn't see things our way. It complains that the deeds of cruelty, massacre
violence, pillage and arson, perpetrated by the English, when good Sir James Douglas has spent
the last six years raiding, pillaging and laying waste to the north of England, gaining the epithet
the Black Douglas. It rages about being assailed by the English, and yet justifies the Scots possession
of this land, on the basis that we'd driven out the Britons and utterly destroyed the Picts.
Look I'm not saying they promised 350 million pounds for the NHS on the side of a bus,
I'm just saying that for all its high flowing rhetoric, it's still Medieval propaganda,
but along with that justification of why the Scots should have freedom, there's a story of how our
forefathers got here in the first place. They came from Greater Scythia, brought with them the Stone of
Destiny, came across the Mediterranean, stopped in Spain, where there had numerous hardships, before
coming to Ireland and thence across the Irish Sea. That is our origin myth. Scota the daughter of an
Egyptian Pharaoh, married a Syrian, gave birth to a son, Goidel Glas, the father of the Gaels, and creator
of the Goidelic language. When Kings of Alba were inaugurated, their ancestral line was read out
all the way back to Princess Scota. Now some have her Syrian husband coming from Babylon
at the fall of the tower of Babel, others in the time of Moses, it doesn't really matter,
it's myth and legend, it's story. Now we no longer use myth do we, we've got science nowadays;
archaeology, anthropology, palaeontology, climatology, and all the other ologies you might choose,
let's just call it science shall we. It says that thousands of years ago we migrated out of Africa.
Hold on, is that the sound of a white supremacist rushing to his keyboard? Mary Lou how many L's in bollocks?
So we all came out of Africa and populated Europe. Now other places too, but we're interested in
Scots remember. Then a few thousand years back, there was one of those many periodic ice ages.
At that time, some humans survived the ice age in pockets that we call glacial refugium, dotted
around Europe, and those ology guys can trace their use of flint tools, and stuff like that
and show how humans consolidated in these areas during the last ice age, preserving
the species in Europe. One such refugia is in the Franco-Cantabrian region; northern Spain,
southern France. There are incredible paintings in the Altamira Caves at Santillama del Mar in Spain,
that can be dated through this period, as people retrenched. When the ice age was over, they then spread
out from these glacial refugia and repopulated Europe. Now that's all very interesting, but here's
the point that Stuart made. Every culture has origin myths, they're not science, they're story, but how many
nations have an origin myth, that says that they migrated out of Africa, settled in Spain and had
to deal with great difficulty and suffering, before the people were later able to continue on their
journey to the land that they'd call their own? Get your head around that your pontificate-ness.
Now I'm not saying Scots are special, I'm just saying that an origin story that actually reflects
the now recognised story of human migration, may be just another thing that Scots invented.
If you want to become a Patreon member and see the full conversation with Stuart,
then click the white tab up there, or find the link in the description below. If you want to know more
about the Scots and how they were just one of the peoples who made this nation, then there's
a video coming up on screen now. In the meantime, tha mi an dochas gum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.