Our nation continued to enjoy freedom and peace under the protection of the Papal See, till Edward, the late King of the English, in the guise of a friend and ally, attacked our realm, then without a head, and our people, then thinking no evil or deceit, and unaccustomed to war or aggression. The acts of injury, murder, violence, burning, imprisonment of prelates, burning of abbeys, spoliation and slaying of ecclesiastics, and other enormities besides, which he practised on our people, sparing no age or sex, creed or rank, no man could describe or fully understand without the teaching of experience. From such countless evils, by the help of Him that woundeth and maketh whole, we have been delivered by the strenuous exertions of our Sovereign Lord, King Robert, who, for the deliverance of his people and his inheritance from the hands of the enemy, like another Maccabeus or Joshua, cheerfully endured toils and perils, distress and want. Him the Divine Providence, that legal succession in accordance with our laws and customs, which we are resolved to uphold even to death, and the due consent of us all, made our Prince and King. To him, as the man that has worked out the salvation of the people, we, in maintenance of our freedom, by reason as well of his merits as of his right, hold and are resolved to adhere in all things. If he should abandon our cause, with the intention of subjecting us or our realm to the King of England or to the English, we should instantly strain every nerve to expel him as our enemy and the subverter of both his own rights and ours, and choose another for our King, such a one as should suffice for our defence; for, so long as a hundred of us remain alive, never will we be reduced to any sort of subjection to the dominion of the English. For it is not for glory, or riches, or honours, that we contend, but for freedom alone, which no man worthy of the name loses but with his life. With this noble and resolute declaration, they appealed to the Pope to 'admonish' Edward, who ought to be content with his own dominions, anciently held enough for seven kings, and 'to leave in peace us Scotsmen, dwelling in our poor and remote country, and desiring nothing but our own,' for which 'we are ready and willing to do anything we can consistently with our national interests.' But, further, as to the Pope himself: If, however, your Holiness, yielding too credulous an ear to the reports of our English enemies, do not give sincere credit to what we now say, or do not cease from showing them favour to our confusion, it is on you, we believe, that in the sight of the Most High, must be charged the loss of lives, the perdition of souls, and all the other miseries that they will inflict on us and we on them.