An Analysis Of the Relationship Between English and Scottish Kings, 1060-1320

By Lindsay Webster

Deeply ingrained into the Scottish psyche is an intense rivalry with their ‘neighbours to the south’, the English. According to George MacDonald Fraser, ‘The English-Scottish frontier is and was the dividing line between two of the most energetic, aggressive, talented and altogether formidable nations in human history.’[1] Throughout the medieval period, the two nations were represented by their respective kings. The question is; how did these kings interact? Has the rivalry always existed between them or was there a time when Scotland and England were at peace? To answer this it will be necessary to examine Anglo-Scottish relations from the reign of Malcolm Canmore to that of Robert I in Scotland and Edward the Confessor to Edward II in England. Because a king in the medieval period was representative of his people, in this essay, no distinction will be made between Anglo-Scottish relations and the relationships between the kings. This essay will begin by looking at the events of the different centuries in chronological order before trying to pick out key themes in the relationship between Scottish and English kings.

In the second half of the eleventh century, Malcolm Canmore sat on the throne of Scotland. Before 1066, there was relative peace between the two kingdoms with only one major military action fought in Northumbria in 1061 brought on by instability caused by the death of the old earl Siward (of MacBeth fame). The situation was to change in 1066 when William the Bastard of Normandy crossed the Channel and became William the Conqueror of England. In the early reigns, Northumberland was not brought fully under Anglo-Norman control as can be seen by the fact that Northumbria does not appear in Domesday Book[2] and Malcolm tried to use this disunity to once again stake his claim in 1070, 1079, 1091 and 1093 though in each attempt he was unsuccessful. In 1072, King William himself came north and forced Malcolm to submit to him. In 1070, Malcolm had married Margaret, the sister of Aethling Edgar, the heir to the old English royal house. This made Malcolm’s children by Margaret potential heirs to the English throne should there be a popular uprising by the English people. Malcolm’s marriage was the first of five marriages between Scottish royals and members of either the English or Anglo-Norman royal houses between 1069 and 1113. According to Lynch ‘Anglo-Scottish relations were the making and breaking of Malcolm Canmore’[3] meaning that on the one hand his heirs had a claim to the English throne but on the other, he had been forced to pay homage to the Normans and acknowledge their king as being above him. To sum up, in the late eleventh century, relations with England which had been relatively cordial suddenly became relations with Anglo-Norman England and for a time things became quite sour.

            Anglo-Scottish relations recovered somewhat in the twelfth century. David I of Scotland’s sister, Edith (Later Matilda) had married Henry I of England and David had grown up at the English court where he held the title of Earl of Huntingdon. This is an interesting situation as it meant that David was an English noble and vassal to Henry long before he was king in his own country. At court David was a favourite of Henry and did homage to him for his lands in England. David was also knighted by Henry which gave further ties of service. As king of Scots, David was responsible for bringing Anglo-Norman knights into Scotland to settle and introduce feudalism. When Henry died in 1135, David, by then King of Scotland, supported his Daughter, Matilda against her cousin Stephen. David also took the opportunity to try and regain the northern counties of England for the kingdom of Scotland. He seized Cumbria and succeeded in forcing Stephen into ceding Northumbria him as an earldom. David gave Huntingdon and Northumbria to his son, Earl Henry as he did not want to be forced into giving homage to Stephen.[4] During this period, there was a major military engagement at the Battle of the Standard which David lost, preventing him from fully securing his gains. When Matilda gave up her ambitions of ruling England, David transferred his loyalty to her son who would go on to become Henry II. Henry promised David that when he was made king, Cumbria and Northumbria would remain Scottish. However, Henry reneged on the deal and retook the counties although the Earldom of Huntingdon was retained This clearly shows a change in relations as David seemed to no longer want to be a servant of the English king and after Henry’s betrayal, David did not trust Henry.

            David died in 1153 and was succeeded first by Malcolm IV Malcolm was very friendly towards the English and gave away most of his English counties in an effort to be knighted by Henry II. In the end he was knighted by Henry and went to France with him while there was a civil war in Scotland which caused outrage among the Scots nobility. Of course by being knighted by the English king, Malcolm became a sworn vassal of Henry. It was also during Malcolm’s reign that the term ‘Kingdom of Scotland’ first appeared in manuscripts[5] demonstrating the national identity of the Scottish nation beginning to develop. Malcolm died childless and was succeeded by William I, known to history as “The Lion.” William had been Earl of Northumberland before Henry had reclaimed them and it was a sore point with him. William would devote much energy into reclaiming his former Earldom and in 1174, while on an expedition to Alnwick, William and his household knights blundered into English hands while lost in fog. William was captured and forced into the humiliating treaty of Falaise which turned him into a vassal of the English king and handed over to the English, custodianship of key castles including Edinburgh, Roxburgh and Berwick. The treaty also stated that ‘The earls also and the barons and such other men holding land from the king of Scots… shall also do homage to the lord king (Henry II) as against all men, and shall swear fealty to him as their liege lord.’[6] This is basically saying that William’s men were now loyal to the English king over him. It appeared Scotland was gradually becoming merely a sub-state of England until Henry died and was replaced by his son, Richard. Richard had very little interest in the affairs of England and could hardly care if the king of Scots paid him homage or not. What Richard was interested in was crusading and crusading needed money. According to Bartlett, Richard was ‘willing to sell anything to finance his crusade.’[7] Richard therefore negotiated a deal with William to renounce his claims of overlordship over Scotland and to return the castles in exchange for 10,000 merks. The treaty was signed at Canterbury in 1189 and was known as the ‘Quitclaim of Canterbury.’ In 1192, the Pope issued the Cum Universi Bull that declared that the Scottish Church was answerable only to Rome and was a ‘Special daughter’ of the Roman Church; this further separated the two nations. The twelfth century closed with Anglo-Scottish relations more or less where they had been at the start of the century with Scotland independent but its king still owing homage for English lands. Anglo-Scottish relations would take a severe turn for the worse in the following century.

            It was during the thirteenth century that Anglo-Scottish relations turned from the tense but cordial relationship of the previous centuries to the outright animosity and war that would characterise the later medieval period. During the period of 1075 to 1225 there were only twelve years in which either side had raised armies and attacked the other but this peace would end in the thirteenth century. The century opened with John on the English throne and William on the Scottish. In 1193, William had refused to help John to seize power while Richard was on crusade and in 1199, when John took power upon Richard’s death, William raised an army and prepared to invade. However, at the last moment, William was apparently advised against the invasion by his great grandmother, St Margaret.[8] Whatever the real reason, William disbanded his army and cancelled his invasion plans. In 1200, William swore fealty to John in the vain hope of being granted Northumbria. Needless to say, he did not. In 1209, relations had turned sour and William had joined with John’s enemies to plot against him. In response, John raised an army and marched to Norham in the North of England where he forced William to give him 12,000 merks and hand over his daughters to be married to whomever John decided.[9] This was a sign of feudal dependence as it gave John considerable power over William and meant that William could not use his daughters to from alliances with other countries. In 1212, there was a challenge to Williams throne by Guthred MacWilliam, a descendent of Malcolm Canmore through his first marriage. John supported William in this rebellion and sent mercenaries to assist William. In return, in the same year, William informed John of an alleged plot to assassinate him by the English nobility. This shows some form of co-operation between the two kings. In 1214, William died and was succeeded by his son, Alexander II who was only fifteen at the time.

            Alexander supported the English nobility when they pressed John for the Magna Carta in 1215 and there is a clause in the Magna Carta returning the hostages taken by John and giving king Alexander the same treatment as English barons unless charters from William of Scotland state otherwise.[10] Possibly out of spite, in the following year, John invaded Scotland and caused severe destruction throughout Lothian and the Borders. In 1216, John acquired a Papal Bull exonerating him from his commitments in Magna Carta. This caused a civil war in England and Alexander raised an army and invaded, marching as far as Dover where he met with the King of France who had also invaded England to discuss a French takeover of England. However, in that same year, John died and the ideas of regime change fizzled out. The events of 1215-16 almost indicate that Anglo-Scottish relations had turned from cordial in 1214 to incredibly petty in 1215-16 with tit-for-tat attacks on each other.

            In 1221, Alexander married Joan, the sister of Henry III and Anglo-Scottish relations improved for a time. Indeed, Traquair claims that during the reigns of Alexander II and his successor, Alexander III, ‘Anglo-Scottish relations had never been better.’[11] In 1237, a Treaty was signed at York that fixed the Anglo-Scottish Border. Alexander gave up all claims to Northumbria and Cumbria in return for estates in Penrith and Tynedale.[12] Anglo-Scottish relations nearly fell apart in 1244 when a noble, Walter Bisset, who held lands on both sides of the border but had recently lost a lot of land in Scotland, convinced Henry that Alexander was plotting against him. Henry raised an army and marched north, Alexander followed suit and the two armies met in Northumbria. At the last minute, the Archbishop of York stepped in and convinced the two kings not to fight.

Alexander II died in 1249 and was succeeded by his son Alexander III who was only seven years old. In 1251, at the age of only ten years, Alexander was knighted by Henry III and married to his daughter, Margaret. During the reign of Alexander III, relations between Scotland and England were good. Then in 1286, disaster struck. Late one night, Alexander was riding home to visit his new wife, Yolande, when his horse stumbled and threw him off a cliff to his death. Alexander had outlived all of his children and his closest living relative was Margaret, a young girl in far off Norway. This brought up the issue of could a Queen rule on her own? Six guardians of the realm were selected to decide the issue and try to avert civil war. The guardians consulted with Eric, King of Norway and Edward I of England and the outcome was the Treaty of Salisbury in 1289. This treaty stated that Margaret, the Maid of Norway was to be taken to England and then to Scotland. When she was old enough Margaret was to marry Edward I’s heir Edward. The following year, the Treaty of Birgham was signed formalising the agreement and making provisions for Scottish Independence from England. It seemed that crisis had been averted and a deal had been struck that would cause peace between the two countries going into the fourteenth century. However, cruel fate struck once again. En-route from Norway, Margaret became dangerously ill in Orkney and in September 1290, Margaret died taking all hope of peace between the two nations with her.

Scotland was left without an heir. Gradually claimants emerged with varying strengths of claim. There were thirteen competitors for the kingdom although only two had very strong claims: Robert Bruce and John Balliol, both of whom were descended from the younger brother of William the Lion through his daughters.

Through unknown means, Edward became arbitrator of the dispute. There is a theory that he was invited by some the competitors in the hope he would pick them.[13] Whatever the explanation, Edward became the judge in what has become known as the “Great Cause.” His first attempt was to try to claim the throne himself by trying to force the Scots to prove he should not be their overlord.[14] Eventually, Edward chose Balliol providing Balliol first swore fealty to him. At the end of November 1292, John Balliol was crowned at Scone. Edward began treating John as merely one of his vassals, interfering in Scottish legal cases, in some instances overturning John’s judgements and demanding Scottish soldiers to fight for him in France. By 1295, Anglo-Scottish relations had ebbed so low that in October John signed a treaty with the King of France. A furious Edward invaded Scotland in the spring of 1296. The town of Berwick was besieged, taken and sacked with up to 10,000 of its citizens being massacred. In April, the Scottish host was utterly defeated at Dunbar by Edward’s army. In July, king John surrendered to Edward and was publicly deposed and humiliated by having his heraldic surcoat torn from his body. Edward then made an expedition around the east coast of Scotland before retiring to England leaving Scotland under the control of a military governor.[15] Anglo-Scottish relations had hit rock bottom. In the final years of the thirteenth century there was some Scottish resistance to the English, most notably the rebellion of Wallace and Murray in 1297. However, Murray was mortally wounded at the battle of Stirling Bridge in September 1297 and Wallace was crushed by Edward at the battle of Falkirk in 1298. The century came to a close with the great Scottish castle at Caerlaverock falling to Edward’s siege engineers in 1300.

The thirteenth century saw a great improvement in Anglo-Scottish relations. The border was finally defined, there was intermarriage between the nations and for a while it looked like there could be a union of the crowns within a few generations. Barrow argues that the thirteenth century was characterised by the Scots kings trying to ‘keep up with the Plantagenets.’[16] However things went badly wrong and the peace which had been in effect for the past two centuries was shattered. As Bartlett says ‘The two centuries between the death of Malcolm Canmore in 1093 and the ominous intervention of the ageing and demonic Edward I in the 1290s form the most peaceful period in the whole history of relations between Britain’s two largest kingdoms.’[17] The fourteenth century would see Anglo-Scottish relations sink even lower.

In 1306 Robert the Bruce, grandson of the losing competitor, murdered his main rival in Scottish politics, John Comyn. In March of that year, he had himself crowned king at Scone despite Edward having taken the Scottish coronation stone with him to England. Robert then had to fight not only the occupying English but also the supporters of the murdered Comyn. Bruce suffered a series of defeats and was eventually forced to retreat to the Highlands and Islands on the West coast. In July,1307, Edward gathered an army to crush Robert once and for all. However, at Burgh on Sands, the elderly king’s strength gave out and he died. His son, Edward II had no desire to continue the campaign and after a short raid into Scotland, withdrew south again. Over the next seven years, Robert consolidated his power and in June 1314 defeated a superior English host at the battle of Bannockburn. In 1320, the magnates of Scotland sent a letter to the Pope that has passed into legend as the ‘Declaration of Arbroath.’ This document contains the line that is burned into the minds of every Scot and serves as a rallying cry for Scottish Nationalists:

“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.”[18]

This statement shows exactly how low Anglo-Scottish relations had sunk by the fourteenth century. Over the following centuries there would be almost constant warfare with raiding, counter raiding with occasional efforts at peace most of which were unsuccessful.

It is very difficult to come to any conclusion about the relations between Scottish and English kings but it is possible to pick out some key themes.

            The first and probably most important theme is that of homage and overlordship. From the submission of Malcolm Canmore in 1072 until the usurpation of the throne by Robert the Bruce, almost all Scottish kings had owed some sort of fealty to the English kings. However there was much debate about what it was the Scots king actually owed homage for: Was it for his English lands only or was it for the entire kingdom of Scotland. In the late eleventh century it is probable that the Scots kings submitted to the Normans simply because they recognised that it was in their best interests as the Normans were a formidable military power. David I willingly gave homage for his lands in England although under Stephen he was ‘free of any obligation towards an English king’[19] and when Huntingdon was returned to him following Henry II’s seizure of the northern counties, David refused to accept it and gave it instead to his son, Earl Henry. The treaty of Falaise turned the King of Scotland into a vassal of the English king and it was at this point that the Scottish kings were most subordinate to the English. However, they regained their rights and Independence for Scotland with the Quitclaim of Canterbury in 1189.

In 1200, William gave homage to John. Nobody is sure what he was giving homage for; one idea is that it was for Northumbria (which William hoped to be granted) the other is that he was giving homage for Scotland as well. Later on, John Balliol submitted to Edward in order to get onto the throne, he gave homage to Edward and acknowledged him as his feudal superior. Bartlett comments on the similarity between the homage done to the English by the Scots and that done by the English to the French. He says ‘Just as the kings of England were clear that they were the vassals of the kings of France for Normandy, not for the kingdom of England, so the kings of Scots tried to distinguish the homage they did for their English lands from homage for the kingdom of Scotland. The kings of England might have another view.’[20]

A clear indication of the attitude of the English kings towards their Scottish counterparts is in the Treaty of Falaise where Henry II is referred to as dominus rex – the lord king while the king of Scots is simply referred to as rex Scotorum – the king of Scots.[21] Barrow also says that regardless of the attitude of the English kings, the Scots placed themselves on an equal footing with the English kings in the thirteenth century and that this was almost certainly not new political thinking in Scotland.[22]

The other key theme is that of land. The Anglo-Scottish border was not finally defined until the Treaty of York in 1237. Previously there had been disputes over the ownership of Northumbria and Cumbria, both once independent kingdoms. According to Bartlett, David I believed he had a claim to the earldom of Northumbria through his wife who was a daughter of the Earl of Northumberland and indeed during the civil wars of Stephen’s reign, David took Cumbria for the Scots and forced Stephen to cede the earldom of Northumbria to him as an earldom. According to Lynch, the loss of Northumbria to the English left ‘a bitter legacy which kings of Scots still strove to recoup more than half a century later.’[23]

To conclude. The relationship between Scottish and English kings between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries is incredibly complex. There was tension over land ownership and homage but in spite of this, the relationship between the kings was largely one of peaceful co-operation and intermarriage with only occasional outbreaks of conflict. This was all spoiled however by the greed and Imperial ambitions of Edward I and his actions poisoned Anglo-Scottish relations forever.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

The Declaration of Arbroath Translation taken from http://library.byu.edu/~rdh/eurodocs/uk/arbroath.html

Domesday Book Information taken from http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/

The Magna Carta Found in ME2001 Source booklet

The Treaty of Falaise Found in ME2001 Source booklet

Secondary Sources

G. Barrow Scotland and its Neighbours in the Middle Ages. (1992 London.)

R. Bartlett England Under the Anglo-Norman and Angevin Kings (2000)

C. Brown The Second Scottish Wars of Independence (2002 Stroud)

G.M. Fraser The Steel Bonnets (1971 London)

M. Lynch Scotland: A New History (1991, London

G. MacNeill and H. MacQueen Atlas of Scottish History (1996 Edinburgh)

P. Traquair Freedom’s Sword (1998, London)