As the late great Patrick McGoohan put it so succinctly in the motion picture Braveheart: “The trouble with Scotland is that it’s so full of Scots”.
Edward I, the “Hammer of the Scots”, may, in his frustration, very well have uttered these words when confronted by yet another upraising by these stubborn northern rebels.
Was Edward really such an arrogant and ambitious land grabber who absolutely couldn’t stand being opposed (he reportedly was very much prone to near mythical rages)?
On the surface that is exactly what he seems to have been. Storming into Scotland, massacring nearly the whole population of Berwick-on-Tweed and spreading mayhem wherever his armies marched, while, at the same time, demanding total subservience from ‘his subjects’.
You might say that history and pro-Scottish sentiment have turned the English Plantagenet king into a power hungry despot.
And................how about this ‘overlordship’, that Edward claimed he was entitled to.
Yes, Scotland could have a king, but only as long as Edward was recognized as his liege lord.
The majority of the Scots scoffed at the Idea and it took many years of bloody warfare to finally convince the English that they had no business north of Tweed.
So, where did this Overlordship originate?
In the middle ages it was very common for kings to acknowledge overlordship of foreign kings for their lands in these foreign countries.
Mind, we’re talking of ‘lands’. It was totally unheard of to extend the concept of overlordship to that foreign nation as a whole.
After 1066, the Normans, having successfully cowed all English resistance, swept into Scotland in 1072. The Scottish king Malcolm III was forced to bend the knee and acknowledge William the Conqueror as his overlord.
Malcolm III however supported the English rebellions and launched attacks on northern England to re-establish independence from the pushy Normans.
In 1174, in the Treaty of Falaise (also see below!), William the Lion did submit to English overlordship after his capture, but in 1189 Richard I of England ‘sold’ that right back to the Scots again in the ‘Quitclaim of Canterbury’. That was supposed to be the end of it.....but was it?.
The sudden death of Alexander III in 1286 plunged Scotland into a crisis of succession. The more when his successor, the ‘Maid of Norway’, the seven-year-old heir to the Scottish throne, died in late September 1290 while enroute from Norway to Scotland. Scotland was in uproar. No king meant a very uncertain future.
Edward must have watched it all from the sidelines and had English monasteries search their archives for legal evidence of English overlordship in Scotland.
When the request came from the Scots to help choosing a new ruler from the many claimants Edward was of course delighted. Whatever had come out of the archives, it spurned Edward on as he acceded to the Scottish request. Yes he would help them out but they would have to acknowledge him as their overlord.
The Scots did not take that claim too seriously, but when Edward finally chose for Balliol and then proceeded to treat him as a vassal and a complete simpleton to boot, they really got worried.
What followed you can find at The Wars of Independence page.
The Treaty of Falaise (by kind permission of Cumbria and the Borders History):
In 1173-4, England was thrown into chaos when the sons of Henry II (Richard, Henry the Young and Geoffrey) revolted against him.
William (the Lion), King of Scots, used this as an opportunity to take back Northumbria. Williams grandfather, David I of Scotland, had secured the lands of Cumberland and Northumbria in 1139 from King Stephen of England. These lands were secured for Williams father, Henry who died in 1152. David died a year after his son, making his grandson Malcolm IV, King of Scots.
In 1157, Henry II deprived Malcolm of the lands of Cumberland and Scotland- this sowed the seeds of discontent in Malcolm's brother, William. After Malcolm's death in 1165, William assumed the Scottish throne and immediately set out to take back Northumbria, which he saw as his rightful inheritance.
The Revolt of 1173-74 split Henry II's focus between his kingdom of England and his lands in Normandy, Brittany and Flanders. William saw this as the perfect opportunity to take Northumbria back. William led a failed attack of Prudhoe Castle before besieging Alnwick Castle. William split his forces, sending a column under Duncan, Earl of Fife, to attack Warkworth Castle. After a short 'battle at Alnwick' on 12th July 1174, William was captured.
William was taken to Newcastle and then to Richmond to await his fate. On 26th July he was sent to Northampton "with his feet fastened beneath a horse's belly" the shameful ride was just the beginning for William, who was then sent to Falaise Castle in Normandy. There, he awaited the inevitable defeat of the rebellion which he had joined. Whilst in captivity in Falaise, a treaty was drawn up which was issued at Valognes on 8th December 1174.
Henry arranged a public ceremony which was held in York on 10th August 1175. William sealed the document in front of his brother and heir, David, Earl of Huntingdon. The treaty was read out loud to all witnesses. The treaty, for the first time in history, set terms written down which defined the King of Scots to be subservient to the King of England. Henry also had the right to pick a bride for William.
The treaty affected the king, nobles, clergy and all their heirs, judicial proceedings and the loss of castles. It led to England being the ultimate authority over Scotland. Just like the Scottish king, the nobles owed fealty to Henry II and his heirs, making their loyalty greater to Henry than it was to William. The clergy also owed fealty to the Church of England in an aggressive move which enshrined the Archbishop of York's supremacy over Scotland.
The five Scottish castles of Roxburgh, Berwick, Jedburgh, Edinburgh and Stirling were handed over to Henry and were manned by English soldiers at Scotland's expense. Henry was now the high king, allowing William to reign as king of Scots so long as he acknowledged Henry's overriding lordship.
In Galloway, previous tensions resurfaced which led to a rebellion and the slaughter of English and Normans in the area. This led to a long lasting rivalry between Gille Brigte of Galloway and William until Gille Brigte's death in 1185. William's frequent visits to Henry's court and a weakened position in Scotland led to discontent over Scotland. Williams decision to attempt to take back Northumbria had been a costly mistake.
Upon the death of Henry, Richard I (the Lionheart) of England assumed the throne and received William shortly after. With the Third Crusade (1189-92) being a distraction for Richard, the Treaty of Falaise was annulled with the afor mentioned Quitclaim of Canterbury being drawn up, freeing William and Scotland of their subjugation.
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