As I shall show, this transformation has its roots in the process of translation itself, in the inevitable alterations that occur when a medieval Latin manuscript becomes a modern English printed text. Utilizing recent work on the Declaration itself along with the translation theories of Laurence Venuti and others, I argue that English print translations of the Declaration-beginning in 1689 and continuing up to the most recent versions-have dramatically recast it, transforming it from a letter expressing baronial privilege within an esoteric and localized political situation to a universal, populist “declaration of independence.” The result has been the creation of a current popular mythology concerning the document that sees medieval Scots, through the lens of the Declaration, as proto-democrats engaged in a struggle not for privileged baronial libertas but for populist freedom. While not widely known among scholars of the Middle Ages in general, this document has long attracted the attention of historians of the Scottish Wars of Independence, and become an object of near reverence for modern Scottish nationalists and American Scotophiles. In this bloody period of political intrigue, battlefield heroism and variable loyalties, a singularly Scottish identity was born in campaigns against English claims, culminating in the Battle of Bannockburn in June 1314, the fulcrum around which Bruce built a nation and a Scottish peace.This paper examines an often overlooked piece of textual history: the English print translations of a fourteenth-century Scottish baronial letter known as the Declaration of Arbroath.
The chief shift in emphasis in this history was to demonstrate the continuity and unity of purpose which linked the stake-holders of a nascent Scottish realm throughout the period from 1290 to 1329. The central theme of this seminal work remains the interplay and tension between Bruce himself and the very concept of a Scottish nation, of which Bruce aspired to be king. This classic edition of the definitive history of Robert Bruce's life and career, during Scotland's tumultuous coming of age in the Wars of Independence, is one of the twentieth century's bona-fide classics in historical writing.įirst published in 1965, ROBERT BRUCE was quickly recognised as an indispensable guide to understanding Scotland's complex game of thrones and its medieval society. A new in paperback edition commemorating the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, 1314
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