The Declaration of Arbroath

I take no credit for this information it's all from Sandra Barr, I am interested what everyone thinks and hopefully they will add to it through the comments.

The Declaration of Arbroath and Rh Negative Blood

The Declaration of Arbroath

When I was young I remember seeing a TV programme, and white people were referred to as Caucasians, I asked my Father why white people were called Caucasians, and he told me that white people were thought to have come from the Caucasus Mountains.

Of course these days white people are all called “Caucasian”, but few scholars think that white people came from the Caucasus Mountains. I have spent a great deal of my adult life studying the origins of civilisation, the oldest civilization known presently is Sumeria, the Caucasus Mountain area has never been adequately excavated, the whole area is a wash with ancient Dolmens and other structures, those qualified to unlock the secrets of the Caucasus Mountains seem to have no interest in doing so.

https://youtu.be/pA6N6VwBfZQ

The above video is 7.39 minutes, and it looks at the Dolmens on and around the Caucasus Mountains.

The area circled in blue is the Caucasus Mountains within Scythia.

The area of North Eastern Europe that takes in the Caucasus Mountains was known to the Greeks as Scythia. Over the last few months I have been studying the ancient Sumerian civilisation…then a few weeks ago I got side tracked with a personal project. I began researching my Family tree, for now I have circumstantial evidence that links my family to the Scottish Clan Leslie, my research on this is on going, and in due course if I find more solid evidence I will publish my findings.

I decided to publish this short blog, because my research into the Leslie Clan brought me to the Declaration of Arbroath, I expect few people outside of Scotland have ever heard of this declaration, it was penned in Latin in 1320, and Bernard of Kilwinning, the then Chancellor of Scotland and Abbot of Arbroath at Arbroath Abbey is believed to have been it’s author.

To the left: King Robert the Bruce with some of the earls and Barons that sealed the declaration. Bruce is referred to in the declaration as Lord Robert.

The declaration is dated 6 April 1320, and it was addressed to Pope John XXII, the Pope had already recognised Edward I of England’s right to rule Scotland, and the declaration implores the Pope to recognise Scotland as a separate independent nation. It carries the seals of eight Earls and forty-five Barons, including Andrew Leslie one of my probable ancestors, this is what brought me to the Declaration of Arbroath.

Left Pope John XXII

This declaration is of interest for many reasons, and the main point of interest, that various authors have covered, is that Kings do not rule by Divine Right, they rule to serve the people, and the people’s interests, and should they fail in their task, then the people had every right to depose and replace them. The following text from the declaration is probably the most well known section, it is referring to Robert the Bruce:

“Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, 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 first paragraph states who the declaration is addressed to, and the dignitaries who have sealed it. The second paragraph has the most astonishing opening, and all of the authors who have written a commentary on the declaration just brush over it with little or no comment.

Left, some of the the seals of the Earls and Barons that hang from the declaration.

It begins:

Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown.They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous.Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken a single foreigner.

I think this is a most extraordinary opening statement, and I am a little staggered that commentators of the declaration ignore it. They claim that they originated in Greater Scythia, then travelled to the Tyrrhenian Sea, The Pillars of Hercules, Spain, and eventually settled in Scotland. Greater Scythia as previously mentioned takes in the Caucasus Mountains.

NB: The full text of the Declaration of Arbroath is available at the very bottom of this blog.

Rhesus O Negative Blood

My blood group is Rhesus O negative, and many years ago I wondered if my blood group had any thing to do with my long list of allergies, so I ran “Rhesus O negative, Allergies”, through Google.

Well!!! I am still reading! Not only are my allergies common amongst Rh negative people, many of the other anomalies that make up me, are also common to rh negative people. Ie: hypersensitive smell, hearing, sight.

There also seems to be an innate desire amongst many rh negative people to know where they came from. When I read that opening paragraph in the Declaration of Arbroath, I had a light bulb moment, and much of my other research on various topics all of a sudden tied together.

The Basque people of Spain have an unusually high percentage of Rh Negative blood, DNA tests have confirmed a link between the Irish and the Basques, Ireland and Scotland also have a high percentage of people with Rh negative blood, it is not known where the Basques originated, but one of the possible areas is the Caucasus Mountains.

Caucasus Mountain Range

The author of the declaration of Arbroath clearly believed this to be the linage of his people, or he would not have written it. Most commentators on the declaration either ignore this opening paragraph, or dismiss it, here is one example by Andrew Prebble:

“Above the seals of eight earls and forty-five barons, it asked for the Pope's dispassionate intervention in the bloody quarrel between the Scots and the English, and so that he might understand the difference between the two its preamble gave him a brief history of the former. The laughable fiction of this is irrelevant”

“The laughable fiction of this is irrelevant”! Really Andrew! I wonder how long Andrew spent researching this? He offers no documentary evidence to back-up his outlandish statement.

My friend Antonia Leslie is a descendant of the illustrious Clan Leslie, one of the things we have in common is our rare O negative blood group. Existing DNA testing has indeed linked the Basques to the Scots/Irish, the high incidence of Rh O negative blood among the afore mentioned races also links them.

Link, DNA testing links the Irish to the Basques

Where the Basques originated from remains a mystery, but certainly the Caucasus Mountains is high on the list of probabilities, so the opening statement in the Declaration of Arbroath is not quite the “laughable fiction” that Andrew Preebles would have us believe.

The Journey

To give you an idea of the journey outlined by Bernard de Linton in the Declaration of Arbroath, I have mapped it on Google Earth.

They travelled from Greater Scythia to the Tyrrhenian Sea, if we look at either side of the journey line we have Corsica in the Tyrrhenian Sea, Morocco, the Atlas Mountains, the Canary Islands and in Northern Eastern Spain the Basque region.

These are all areas with a high incidence of Rhesus Negative blood!

The journey that Bernard outlined, perfectly maps the journey of Rhesus Negative people!

The rhesus negative blood type was not identified until 1937, Bernard de Linton authoring the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320 would have known nothing about it, yet he has very accurately given the trajectory of one of the lines of O rh negative people. Naturally other lines travelled to other parts of the globe, although the most significant journey of the Rh Negative people, seems to be along the course that Bernard outlined.

I think this deserves further study and research; I really just wanted my observations on this matter on the net as no one else has looked at it. The Declaration of Arbroath is already recognised as a very important historical document, yet its opening paragraph has not been examined until now.

The Pillars of Hercules

In my investigation of this matter, I stumbled on something of interest “The Pillars of Hercules” is a phrase that from antiquity referred to the Northern Pillar, which was the Rock of Gibraltar, and a Southern corresponding peak in North Africa, the latter being the lesser of the peaks. Jebel Musa in Morocco is one of the most likely locations for the Northern Peak.

Charles V was the King of Spain and impresario of the Holy Roman Empire, he had the pillars incorporated on the Spanish Coat of Arms, shown as actual pillars, obviously this is the same as the Masonic Jachin and Boaz Pillars. Freemasonry began in Scotland and spread across the world, the pivotal point in every Masonic Temple is between the two pillars……could this possibly be connected to the journey they believe they took to Scotland via the Pillars of Hercules?

"All Masonic lodges have these two pillars at some location in their architecture. In the earliest Lodges, they were said to represent far more ancient pillars, supposedly erected by “the children of Lamech.”

On those ancient pillars -- one of brick, one of stone -- were said to be engraved all the then known sciences to preserve them from destruction “by fire or inundation.” As such, they symbolized the esoteric importance of the knowledge of the builder's (mason’s) art, to be guarded and preserved by future faithful craftsmen. Simply put, according to Masonic legend, “the children of Lamech” were the inhabitants of Atlantis. This information, passed down from that prior highly advanced civilization, is supposed to form the basis of the Masonic secrets “from the ancient times.” Link

The pillars from the COA’s later appeared on the Spanish Dollar, and the American Dollar derived from the Spanish Dollar, so the two lines on the US dollar, are in fact the Pillars of Hercules! The COA’s bears the motto Plus Ultra, Latin for Further Beyond. Used on the COA’s they represent an entrance to the rest of the world, as opposed to the gateway to the Mediterranean.

Esoterically the pillars have been seen as the gateway to some kind of extraterrestrial portal, and if you look at the Wikipedia page for possible sites for Atlantis, you will see the map below, the yellow dots pretty much encircle part of the journey Bernard outlined for his people!



Link: hypothesized locations for Atlantis

And with that I will sign off.

Sandra Barr

Update 01/12/14:

Eureka! After publishing this blog, a facebook friend sent me this link, DNA testing has indeed linked the Scots with the Sythians!

Excerpt:"it is not just linguistic connection but also connection by common genetic origin - haplogroups R1a and I2a2....

note also that I2a2 in Greece is also strongest in Dorian settled areas of Peloponese and ancient Macedonia... I would expect some or dominant DIsles among the I2a2 found there... btw. look also again at R1a distribution... R1a in area of antic Macedonia is much stronger than among south Slavic nations north of it (FYRM, Bulgaria, Serbia...)

anyway, we can clearly see that mix of R1a and I2a2 is not recent... that it existed among Scythians long time ago...before a tribe from Scythia departed to Spain and from there to Scotland and northeast Ireland."

For anyone with a serious interest in discovering where the Rh Negative blood came from, this information directly links the Scots and Basques to the ancient Scthians . As Rh Negative blood is common in these groups, this gives us ancient Scythia as the point of common origin. The ancient Dolmens on the Caucasus Mountains that I began this blog with, could well be the ancestral home of the rh negative people.

Maybe they came there from somewhere else....maybe not, but we now at least have sound evidence that our ancestors came from that area, and it deserves further investigation.

Update 5:9:2016

A team of researchers from Copenhagen University have now found the genetic origin of blue eyes, they believe that the first blue eyed person lived in the Black Sea areaapprox 6,000 - 10,000 thousand years ago. Source

Given the high incidence of blue eyed Rhesus negative people, this links directly to the above blog. The source of this information has SPECULATED that blue eyes were the result of a mutation. They may have established as fact where blue eyes originated and when, but they do not know as fact why blue eyes appeared at this time.

The Black Sea lies south of ancient Scythia , (see map below), obviously it is a sea and not a land mass, so no one lived on the sea! The Caucasus Mountains borders the Eastern area of the Black Sea.

Update 18/09/2017

A recent Swiss genetic study has revealed that over half of European men have the same genetic ancestor as Tutankhamen: Excert:

The results showed that King Tut belonged to a genetic profile group, known as haplogroup R1b1a2, to which more than 50 percent of all men in Western Europe belong, indicating that they share a common ancestor.

It goes on to say that the common ancestor lived in the Caucasus about 9,500 years ago!

“We think the common ancestor lived in the Caucasus about 9,500 years ago,” Scholz told Reuters.

It is estimated that the earliest migration of haplogroup R1b1a2 into Europe began with the spread of agriculture in 7,000 BC, according to iGENEA.

However, the geneticists were not sure how Tutankhamun’s paternal lineage came to Egypt from its region of origin.

LINK

The Declaration of Arbroath 1320 — English Translation

To the most Holy Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord John, by divine providence Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman and Universal Church, his humble and devout sons Duncan, Earl of Fife, Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, Lord of Man and of Annandale, Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March, Malise, Earl of Strathearn, Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, William, Earl of Ross, Magnus, Earl of Caithness and Orkney, and William, Earl of Sutherland; Walter, Steward of Scotland, William Soules, Butler of Scotland, James, Lord of Douglas, Roger Mowbray, David, Lord of Brechin, David Graham, Ingram Umfraville, John Menteith, guardian of the earldom of Menteith, Alexander Fraser, Gilbert Hay, Constable of Scotland, Robert Keith, Marischal of Scotland, Henry St Clair, John Graham, David Lindsay, William Oliphant, Patrick Graham, John Fenton, William Abernethy, David Wemyss, William Mushet, Fergus of Ardrossan, Eustace Maxwell, William Ramsay, William Mowat, Alan Murray, Donald Campbell, John Cameron, Reginald Cheyne, Alexander Seton, Andrew Leslie, and Alexander Straiton, and the other barons and freeholders and the whole community of the realm of Scotland send all manner of filial reverence, with devout kisses of his blessed feet.

Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken a single foreigner.

The high qualities and deserts of these people, were they not otherwise manifest, gain glory enough from this: that the King of kings and Lord of lords, our Lord Jesus Christ, after His Passion and Resurrection, called them, even though settled in the uttermost parts of the earth, almost the first to His most holy faith. Nor would He have them confirmed in that faith by merely anyone but by the first of His Apostles — by calling, though second or third in rank — the most gentle Saint Andrew, the Blessed Peter's brother, and desired him to keep them under his protection as their patron forever.

The Most Holy Fathers your predecessors gave careful heed to these things and bestowed many favours and numerous privileges on this same kingdom and people, as being the special charge of the Blessed Peter's brother. Thus our nation under their protection did indeed live in freedom and peace up to the time when that mighty prince the King of the English, Edward, the father of the one who reigns today, when our kingdom had no head and our people harboured no malice or treachery and were then unused to wars or invasions, came in the guise of a friend and ally to harass them as an enemy.

The deeds of cruelty, massacre, violence, pillage, arson, imprisoning prelates, burning down monasteries, robbing and killing monks and nuns, and yet other outrages without number which he committed against our people, sparing neither age nor sex, religion nor rank, no one could describe nor fully imagine unless he had seen them with his own eyes.

But from these countless evils we have been set free, by the help of Him Who though He afflicts yet heals and restores, by our most tireless Prince, King and Lord, the Lord Robert. 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 Macabaeus or Joshua and bore them cheerfully.

Him, too, divine providence, his right of succession according to or laws and customs which we shall maintain to the death, and the due consent and assent of us all have made our Prince and King. To him, as to the man by whom salvation has been wrought unto our people, we are bound both by law and by his merits that our freedom may be still maintained, and by him, come what may, we mean to stand. Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, 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.

Therefore it is, Reverend Father and Lord, that we beseech your Holiness with our most earnest prayers and suppliant hearts, inasmuch as you will in your sincerity and goodness consider all this, that, since with Him Whose vice-gerent on earth you are there is neither weighing nor distinction of Jew and Greek, Scotsman or Englishman, you will look with the eyes of a father on the troubles and privation brought by the English upon us and upon the Church of God. May it please you to admonish and exhort the King of the English, who ought to be satisfied with what belongs to him since England used once to be enough for seven kings or more, to leave us Scots in peace, who live in this poor little Scotland, beyond which there is no dwelling-place at all, and covet nothing but our own. We are sincerely willing to do anything for him, having regard to our condition, that we can, to win peace for ourselves.

This truly concerns you, Holy Father, since you see the savagery of the heathen raging against the Christians, as the sins of Christians have indeed deserved, and the frontiers of Christendom being pressed inward every day; and how much it will tarnish your Holiness's memory if (which God forbid) the Church suffers eclipse or scandal in any branch of it during your time, you must perceive. Then rouse the Christian princes who for false reasons pretend that they cannot go to help of the Holy Land because of wars they have on hand with their neighbours.

The real reason that prevents them is that in making war on their smaller neighbours they find quicker profit and weaker resistance. But how cheerfully our Lord the King and we too would go there if the King of the English would leave us in peace, He from Whom nothing is hidden well knows; and we profess and declare it to you as the Vicar of Christ and to all Christendom. But if your Holiness puts too much faith in the tales the English tell and will not give sincere belief to all this, nor refrain from favouring them to our prejudice, then the slaughter of bodies, the perdition of souls, and all the other misfortunes that will follow, inflicted by them on us and by us on them, will, we believe, be surely laid by the Most High to your charge.

To conclude, we are and shall ever be, as far as duty calls us, ready to do your will in all things, as obedient sons to you as His Vicar; and to Him as the Supreme King and Judge we commit the maintenance of our cause, casting our cares upon Him and firmly trusting that He will inspire us with courage and bring our enemies to nought. May the Most High preserve you to his Holy Church in holiness and health and grant you length of days.

Given at the monastery of Arbroath in Scotland on the sixth day of the month of April in the year of grace thirteen hundred and twenty and the fifteenth year of the reign of our King aforesaid.

Endorsed: Letter directed to our Lord the Supreme Pontiff by the community of Scotland.