IT looks pretty good for its age. Frayed around the edges, a bit faded, quite fragile, but then it is 703 years old this week. To mark the occasion, new pictures have been published. There’ll also be celebratory events later in the year. But I worry a bit about the Declaration of Arbroath. I worry about what we’ve done to it.

The fact that there’ll be events to mark the anniversary, including a new exhibition in June, is fair enough in a way. The National Museum of Scotland says the declaration is one of its most prestigious documents and a record of a key period in our history; the exhibition will also be a rare chance to get up close to it. Most people, when they see it, say the declaration is a lot smaller than they thought it would be and that’s probably because the myths that surround it have got bigger and bigger.

The biggest of them all, of course, is that the declaration is in some way a founding document of democracy in Scotland and possibly beyond. You may have heard the story, for example, that the Arbroath document inspired the US Declaration of Independence – in fact, the influence was precisely the other way around and may explain why we started using the word “declaration” in relation to Arbroath in the first place. No one called it that until at least the 19th century.

Some of this reinterpretation is perfectly natural: the way we see the people, events, or documents of history is subject to change depending on who we are, what we think, and when we’re living. Scots of a nationalistic bent may attach great importance to the declaration, but it’s probably because they’re applying modern sensibilities to an ancient document. The “declaration” was in fact a letter written in the name of the earls and barons – the elite – to shore up the position of the King. What it definitely wasn’t was an assertion of the power of the people over the power of a monarch.

Obviously, some people argue the declaration can still be seen as an early articulation of ideas around sovereignty and democracy based on its most famous phrase “we are fighting … for freedom” but most experts would disagree. I’ve spoken to Dr Alice Blackwell of the National Museum among others about this and most of them point out that the way we see the declaration is very recent. In fact, some would argue that it wasn’t really until the 1970s, when the document was 650, that we started to view it as influential or important at all. In many ways, its iconic status is an entirely modern invention.

I don’t want any of this to come across as mean-spirited – I wish the declaration a very happy 703rd birthday – but I do think it’s important to keep modern interpretations of a document from 1320 in check so we can also stay humble about our specialness and make the arguments for or against independence in the proper context. Kevin Hague, of the pro-UK organisation These Islands, says there’s an irony in the fact that Scots arguing for separation will roll their eyes at any mention of the two world wars but five minutes later will hark back to the 14th century. And he has a point doesn’t he?

The trick, surely, is to try and keep the declaration in its proper perspective. I do not begrudge people who want Scotland to be independent and see a certain resonance in the Declaration of Arbroath but the risk is that they then conclude that the document is somehow “theirs” and not “ours”. The same applies to other Scottish symbols: the saltire and, particularly with the coronation coming up, the Stone of Destiny.

The fact that we talk about such things more than we did is logical: questions of Scottish nationality, independence and the constitution have become more urgent and so some of the symbols and iconography around them have too. But I hope that, when we get the chance, we will go the new exhibition and look at this ancient letter, the fragile tendrils of paper and the aged dabs of wax, and see it for what it actually is. It can help bring our history to life, certainly, but it isn’t really the history we think it is.