The following extracts come from an article that appeared in the
Electronic
Telegraph
A 700-year-old letter dictated by the "Braveheart" warrior, William Wallace, should be returned
from Germany, the Scottish National Party said last night.
Alec Salmond, the party's leader, urged the Museum of Scotland to rectify a "galling omission"
and include the letter in an exhibition. Mr Salmond said that the museum had claimed it could not
feature Wallace in the exhibition because there was no authenticated object associated with him.
He said: "Now that they no longer have that defence . . . the museum should certainly take
immediate steps to get the document on loan." The letter, written by Wallace following victory
over the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297, was believed to have been destroyed
during the Second World War.
Two copies in Latin were delivered to Hamburg and Lubeck telling them Scotland had been
"recovered out of the power of the English", and inviting the north Germans to re-open trade
routes through Scottish ports.
The Hamburg letter was destroyed in the Second World War, and most historians assumed the
Lubeck letter had suffered a similar fate. Yesterday, however, a Scottish newspaper reported that
it had been found in an archive in Lubeck."
In a follow-up article in February 1999, the Telegraph reported that this
letter from William Wallace was put on display in Scotland for the first time yesterday.
"The faded parchment, written in Latin by a medieval civil servant, was sent to the German town
of Lubeck in 1297 to inform merchants that it was safe to resume trade with Scotland. Its return,
seven centuries later, was arranged after the new Museum of Scotland was criticised in December
for failing to mark the life of one of the nation's greatest folk heros.
The Lubeck Letter is one of the few surviving relics of the freedom fighter who defeated the army
of Edward I at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. It was dictated by Wallace and his fellow-commander,
Andrew Murray, and states: "Your merchants can now have safe access with their merchandise
to all the ports of the Kingdom of Scotland, for, thanks be to God, the
Kingdon of Scotland has now, by battle, been recovered from the power of the English."
A copy of the same letter was sent to Hamburg but is thought to have been destroyed during WW II.
When the new museum opened in Edinburgh last year without any material on Wallace - whose
life was the basis of the Mel Gibson film Braveheart - curators said that very little had survived.
When the existence of the letter emerged a campaign was begun for its return to Scotland from
Lubeck's Archiv der Hansestadt museum. It is back on 'loan."
