During this anniversary year there has been a great deal of interest in the Battle of Bannockburn, especially by way of attempts to reconstruct the different phases of the battle and establish the exact nature of the military activity that took place. However, the War of Independence was about much more than just military matters. Tom Dowds has researched constitutional aspects of the Scottish nation at the time, and especially the way that the Scottish clergy made out a strong case for Scottish independent nationhood, beginning with ‘The Pleading’ of 1301 to the Pope in Rome, involving three canon lawyers, and extending through to the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320.
