Barons who signed Declaration of Arbroath ‘plotted to assassinate Bruce’

HIGH-RANKING nobles plotted to kill one of Scotland’s most iconic and celebrated rulers, historians claim.

Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland between 1306 and 1329, was one of the most famous warriors of his generation.

He eventually led the Scots during the First War of Scottish Independence against England in 1320 and is considered a Scottish hero.

Bruce is remembered for helping to draw up The Declaration of Arbroath, a letter from Scottish barons calling for other countries to recognise Scotland as an independent nation. It also asked them to recognise Robert the Bruce as their monarch.

But new research undertaken by Dr Fiona Watson from the University of Dundee on the Declaration’s 700th anniversary reveals something different.

She claims that several barons who had added their seal to the Declaration were executed after the king took vengeance against his perceived conspirators in a bloody cull.

Dr Watson says that within months of the Declaration, Robert the Bruce arrested those he could not trust whilst others fled to

England or France with their followers to escape the king’s anger.

Dr Watson said: “The Declaration of Arbroath was a supposed show of unity but the truth is very different.

“Within a few short months, some of the nobles who sealed it were up for treason, conspiring against the king.

“The details of the plot are murky. Robert the Bruce may simply have had information that some of these nobles were not truly loyal, but at least seven signatories were accused.

“Some are sentenced to be drawn, hanged and beheaded along with lesser men in their retinues.

“Others escaped to England where they were accepted by King Edward II.”

The declaration, thought to have been drawn up on April 6, 1320, by Bernard, Abbot of Arbroath, is widely considered the most eloquent statement of the case for a nation’s claim to freedom produced anywhere in medieval Europe.

Its most celebrated lines state: “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.”

The document also presented Robert the Bruce as a lawful king ruling with the consent of his people.

But Dr Watson says a lot of the Scottish population hated the ruler and didn’t support him.

She added that the king was a “great military leader” but claimed that he held the position “illegally”.

She continued: “Scottish nobles had no choice but to accept him as king but that doesn’t mean all of their hearts were in it.

“Many Scots regarded Edward Balliol as the rightful king.”