Freedom COAST

Arbroath is a small, unassuming Angus town on the east coast of Scotland that is set to become a focal point for visitors in 2020. This year marks the 700th anniversary of a historic political document called the Declaration of Arbroath. It originated in 1320 when eight earls and around 40 nobles gathered in Arbroath Abbey to add their seal to a letter addressed to Pope John XXII in Avignon. The Declaration notably called for Scotland’s autonomy from England, with its own legitimate king, yet, as a political document, it was much more far reaching than that.

In a time when people truly believed in God, heaven and hell, the Declaration was a plea to the Pope to lift the sentence of excommunication imposed on Robert the Bruce (or Robert I). The Scottish king had stabbed his political rival, John Comyn, within a Dumfries church in 1306 and then