Edinburgh and Northampton Agreement

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With the Agreement of Edinburgh and Northampton , England recognized the independence of Scotland on May 4, 1328 and the claim of Robert I to the Scottish throne. The treaty ended the First Scottish War of Independence, which began in 1296 .

prehistory

In the war between England and Scotland, the English King Edward II had to conclude an armistice with Scotland in 1323. Edward II had refused to recognize Robert Bruce as King of Scotland, but the armistice was signed for thirteen years. After the fall of Edward II in autumn 1326, the Scots began new attacks on northern England in February 1327. As a result, the new English government, dominated by Queen Isabelle and Roger Mortimer , launched a new campaign against Scotland in the summer of 1327. After the disastrous failure of this campaign called Weardale Campaign , the Scots carried out further raids on Northumberland as early as August 1327 . They no longer limited themselves to raids, but besieged the great castles in the region. The English could do little to counter the Scottish attacks, so they feared that the Scots might conquer Northumberland entirely. Without being able to do anything about the Scottish raids, the English court left York on August 28 and moved via Nottingham to Lincoln , where a parliament had been convened. Henry Percy was appointed defender of the Scottish Marches on September 12, 1327 , before Parliament was opened on September 15. Although Parliament should deliberately concern itself with the defense of northern England against Scottish attacks, the magnates did not propose how this should be implemented. The British government was now faced with the choice of either launching a new campaign in defense of Northumberland or entering into peace negotiations. At first the English apparently wanted to fight, because at the beginning of October 1327, the formation of mobiles was ordered in eight counties . Given the failed Weardale Campaign, the English were tired of war. The Scots were also ready to negotiate. Their king was terminally ill and his son and heir, David , was a child.

Negotiations begin

The English government sent William Denholme (also William Denum ) to offer peace negotiations to Robert I, and on October 9, Henry Percy and Denholme were authorized to negotiate a lasting peace. Mortimer and King Isabelle were apparently ready to give up the claims of numerous English magnates to Scottish territory which they had acquired during the temporary English rule in Scotland. Percy and Denholme met the Scottish king in front of Norham Castle , which he continued to besiege. Shortly after the negotiations began, King Robert I presented his peace offer on October 18 in Berwick :

  • The Kingdom of Scotland had no feudal obligations to the Kingdom of England,
  • through a marriage of the Scottish heir to the throne David with a sister of the English king Edward III. a marriage alliance is made,
  • no English magnate gets his lost possessions back in Scotland,
  • no Scottish magnate gets his lost property back in England,
  • An alliance is concluded between England and Scotland against attacks by third parties, with the exception of an attack by France, an ally of Scotland,
  • Scotland will pay England £ 20,000 over three years. In return, the English king campaigns for the excommunication of Robert I to be lifted .

On October 30, the King of England formally consented to negotiations in Newcastle in Nottingham , signaling that he considered the Scottish peace offer generally acceptable. However, he demanded further negotiations about the compensation of barons who lost their property in the other country, as well as about the planned alliance. On November 23, he commissioned Archbishop William Melton of York and twelve envoys to conduct the further negotiations in Newcastle. A little later, the Scots agreed to an armistice limited to March 13, 1328.

Final negotiations and recognition of the peace

At the end of January 1328 a Scottish delegation of about a hundred arrived in York to conduct further negotiations about the border, the Scottish possession of the Isle of Man and the recognition of English rule in Ireland . On March 1, Edward III confirmed. at an English parliament the result of the negotiations, whereby he recognized Scotland as an independent kingdom and Robert I as the rightful king. With that he gave up the politics of his grandfather Edward I and his father Edward II, who had tried to enforce English supremacy over Scotland. The English king recognized the reign of Robert I and his heirs, which during the reign of Alexander III. existing border between Scotland and England was recognized as a border. The English crown renounced all rights and claims in Scotland. Eduard III wanted to do this. turn to the Roman Curia to have the church sentences against the Scottish king lifted. Edward III. authorized English ambassadors to conduct the marriage negotiations between his younger sister Johanna and the Scottish heir to the throne David. The high-ranking English legation included Bishop Henry Burghersh , Geoffrey Le Scrope , Henry Percy and William la Zouche . They were due to arrive in Edinburgh by March 10th to conduct further negotiations with the Scottish king. This was the first time since the beginning of the war that English envoys came to Scotland to conduct negotiations there. The Scottish King had called a parliament on February 28th to discuss peace with England. Seven Scottish bishops, six earls and numerous other barons attended parliament. It sat until at least March 17th, when the final negotiations with the English ambassadors were held in the Palace of Holyrood . Before April 11, 1328, the English ambassadors had returned to the royal court at Stamford . Mortimer and Isabelle had called a parliament in Northampton for April 24th. There, on May 4th, the parliament and the reluctant Edward III approved. the result of negotiations with Scotland, which brought peace into effect.

The stone of Scone

After the peace agreement, the stone stolen in 1296 was to be brought back to Scotland from Scone , the traditional place of the establishment of the Scottish kings. Despite the resistance of King Edward III. Queen Isabelle was determined to bring the stone to Berwick for the wedding of her daughter Johanna with the Scottish heir to the throne David. At the urging of his mother, the king finally ordered the abbot of Westminster Abbey on July 1 to hand the stone over to the sheriffs of London, who would then hand it over to Isabelle. However, when it became known in London that the stone was to be returned to Scotland, there was a riot, whereupon the Abbot of Westminster refused to hand over the stone. The king finally received a letter stating that further orders were required to hand it over, and the stone remained in Westminster.

consequences

In the peace agreement, the Scots had agreed to bring £ 20,000 in three installments over the next three years to Tweedmouth as a contribution to peace . This sum was roughly the same as the amount the counties in the north of England had paid in tribute over the past seventeen years to prevent Scottish raids. Most of the money the Scots paid over the next two years, however, went straight to Queen Isabelle's coffers. The young Edward III. had openly shown his distaste for peace in Northampton, but under pressure from Mortimer had agreed. The negotiations had not resulted in a face-to-face meeting between the English king and the Scottish king, and neither did the marriage of Johanna and David bring them together. Edward III. did not give his sister Johanna a dowry for the marriage , while in 1332 he gave his second sister Eleanor a dowry of £ 10,000 when she married the Count of Geldern . When Robert I learned that the English king was not attending the wedding ceremony, he was also excused. Numerous English magnates also rejected the disgraceful peace, which led to increasing dissatisfaction with the government of Mortimer and Isabelle. Soon there were rumors that Isabelle and Mortimer had made the peace only for their own benefit. Henry of Lancaster and other barons considered the peace void because few magnates had attended the Northampton Parliament which had ratified the peace. The barons, who had to give up their claims to Scottish possessions due to the peace, described themselves as disinherited . A number of the disinherited supported the unsuccessful Lancaster revolt against Mortimer in late 1328.

In October 1330 Edward III fell. the reign of his mother Isabelle and Roger Mortimer. As a result, he secretly supported the disinherited who, together with the Scottish heir to the throne Edward Balliol , were planning an invasion of Scotland. When Balliol and the Disinherited invaded Scotland with an army in the summer of 1332, the Second Scottish War of Independence began .

See also

literature

  • Ranald Nicholson: Edward III and the Scots. The formative Years of a Military Career . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1965
  • Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, pp. 360-369.

Web links

Wikisource: en: Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Seymour Phillips: Edward II . New Haven, Yale University Press 2010. ISBN 978-0-300-15657-7 , pp. 546.
  2. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 45.
  3. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 42.
  4. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 46.
  5. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 46.
  6. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 46.
  7. ↑ Seymour Phillips: Edward II . New Haven, Yale University Press 2010. ISBN 978-0-300-15657-7 , pp. 549.
  8. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 49.
  9. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, pp. 363-364.
  10. ↑ Seymour Phillips: Edward II . New Haven, Yale University Press 2010. ISBN 978-0-300-15657-7 , pp. 549.
  11. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 48.
  12. ↑ Natalie Fryde: The tyranny and fall of Edward II, 1321-1326 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2003. ISBN 0-521-54806-3 , p. 217.
  13. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, p. 369.
  14. ↑ Alison Weir: Isabella. She-Wolf of France, Queen of England . London, Pimlico 2006, ISBN 0-7126-4194-7 , p. 311.
  15. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 51.
  16. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 54.
  17. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 55.
  18. ↑ Alison Weir: Isabella. She-Wolf of France, Queen of England . London, Pimlico 2006, ISBN 0-7126-4194-7 , p. 313.
  19. ↑ Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots , p. 56.