Treaty of Norham (1209)

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In the Treaty of Norham on August 7, 1209 , England and Scotland came to an understanding that resolved a serious political crisis between the two empires. In fact, the Scottish King Wilhelm I had to largely submit to the English King Johann Ohneland .

prehistory

The Scottish King William had tried throughout his reign to regain Northumberland and other northern English territories, which he had had to give up in 1157. After a military defeat he had to recognize the fiefdom of the English king in the Treaty of Falaise in 1174 . He was able to replace this with a cash payment in 1189. Wilhelm had a tense relationship with Johann Ohneland, who had ruled England since 1199. Relations between the two kings came to a head after the English king took over administration of the temporalities of the vacant diocese of Durham in northern England in April 1208 . In August 1208, the English king toured northern England. It was probably during this stay that he ordered the construction of a castle at Tweedmouth . The construction of this fortification, located at the mouth of the Tweed and thus directly on the border with Scotland, was a provocation for the Scots, as the castle could threaten free sea access to Berwick , the most important Scottish port city at the time. Wilhelm therefore sent soldiers across the border at least once, and according to other reports even twice, to destroy the fortification under construction. The reports are contradicting whether they also murdered the workers on the construction site. A far greater threat to the English king, however, were the negotiations that the Scottish king conducted with the French king Philip II . Presumably the Scottish king had offered to marry one of his daughters to Philipp Hurepel , a younger son of the French king. The French king had conquered a large part of the French possessions from John by 1204 , and since then the latter has tried to win them back. A Scottish-French alliance would have threatened Johann on two fronts. The English king was therefore determined to eliminate the Scottish king as a possible opponent.

Confrontation and negotiations on the border

In the spring of 1209 the English king surprisingly marched with an army to the north of England and reached Alnwick before April 23rd . He sent envoys to Scotland who reached the Scottish king at Roxburgh . First a meeting of the two kings should take place in Newcastle , but probably both kings met in April 1209 once in Bolton near Alnwick and again in Norham . The English king demanded the surrender of several Scottish castles, which the Scots firmly refused. Both kings had raised an army for the Norham meeting, and around April 25 they parted without their negotiating positions moving closer. The Scottish King then invited his magnates to a council meeting in Stirling on May 24th . At this meeting the Scots again resolutely rejected the English demands. William de Malveisin , the Bishop of St Andrews, Bishop Walter of Glasgow, William Comyn and Philip de Valognes , as ambassadors, brought this answer to the English king, who angrily received it. To ease the situation, the Scottish king then sent the Bishop of St Andrews and the Abbot of Melrose Abbey to England for further negotiations. This legation overlapped with an English legation consisting of the Earl of Winchester and Robert de Ros , a son-in-law of the Scottish King. This English embassy met the Scottish King in Edinburgh . Thereupon the Scottish king sent the Knight Templar William de Mortimer as a new envoy to England. The content of these negotiations is unknown, but they appear to have been unsuccessful, as Bishop William of St Andrews returned to report that King John was traveling north with a large army. The Scottish king then raised an army again. At the end of July both kings and their armies were hostile to each other at Norham. Wilhelm was already an old man at that time and had been ill several times in the past few months. The English army was reinforced by allied Welsh troops led by Llywelyn ab Iorwerth , the prince of Gwynedd , as well as by foreign mercenaries and was clearly superior to the Scottish army. Faced with this situation, the Scottish king decided to give in. On July 25th, he met the English king, and after further negotiations, on August 7th, 1209, he concluded the Treaty of Norham with the English king.

Terms of contract

The Treaty of Norham was less of a treaty between the two kings than a submission of the Scottish king. He had to pay the English king the stately sum of 15,000 marks in four installments within two years . In addition, he might have to officially renounce his claims to the northern English  counties. To be on the safe side, the Scots had to place 15 high-ranking hostages, including Margarete and Isabella , Wilhelm's two oldest legitimate daughters. Whether they were actually held hostage is controversial, because the English king is said to have promised to marry them until they came of age. One of them should be married to the English heir to the throne, according to other information the second daughter should also be married to a member of the English royal family. In return, the English king assured the Scottish king of peace. Tweedmouth Castle was to be razed for this purpose, but the Scots were to pay an additional £ 4,000 to compensate for the previous destruction. Scotland did not have to cede any strategically important castles and the Scottish king did not have to pay homage to the English king and thus acknowledge his supremacy. Apparently the contract was drawn up hastily and in secret. Only four witnesses, Bishop William of St Andrews and Philip de Valognes for the Scottish side and Robert de Ros and Robert de Vieuxpont for the English side, testified to the treaty.

consequences

Apparently still in Norham, the Scottish heir to the throne Alexander paid homage to the English king for the possessions of the Scottish kings in England. On August 16, 1209, the king's daughters and the other hostages were handed over in Carlisle . For the end of September 1209, the Scottish king had convened a council meeting in Perth , but due to severe flooding it was moved to Stirling. At that meeting it appeared that it was decided how to raise funds for the payments agreed in Norham. A first installment was paid on November 30, 1209, and by 1211 most of the money had been paid. On the condition that the hostages remained in England, the remaining sum was apparently waived. Even if the Scottish king was angry about the humiliating terms of the contract, he no longer represented a threat to the rule of the English king until his death. When in 1210, Maud de Braose and Hugh de Lacy, two opponents of Johann Ohneland fled to Scotland, found they have no refuge there. Instead, the English king could count on the support of Alan , lord of the south-west Scottish rule Galloway, who supported him with ships and troops on his campaign to Ireland. In 1211 there was a rebellion of the Macwilliams in northern Scotland , which Wilhelm could not suppress. Presumably he then asked the English king for assistance. In February 1212 negotiations took place in Durham, northern England , in which not the Scottish king, but his wife, Queen Ermengarde , took an active part. It was probably agreed in the so-called Treaty of Durham that the heir to the throne Alexander should be married to a daughter of Johann Ohneland and knighted by him . In fact, the English king knighted the Scottish heir to the throne on March 4, 1212 at Clerkenwell . Then Alexander returned to Scotland with a force of foreign mercenaries, which the English king had put at his disposal, and was able to end the rebellion of the Macwilliams. The Treaty of Durham had shown, however, that the English king actually had sovereignty over Scotland. However, Alexander's marriage to a daughter of the English king was delayed, and the Scottish hostages, including the two royal daughters, arrested in 1209 were still in the hands of the English king. After Wilhelm's death at the end of 1214, Alexander became king of the Scots. He allied himself with the English barons, who rebelled against Johann Ohneland, and supported them from 1215 in the barons' war against the English king.

After the Treaty of York was concluded in 1237, the Scots received the English treaty documents back. Since they were neither in Edinburgh nor in London in the 1290s, the Scots probably destroyed the documents disparaging them.

Historical evaluation

The course of the negotiations is only known from the 15th century report by Walter Bower , although Bower apparently knew little about the content of the negotiations. There are also only indirect, sometimes contradicting reports on the probable negotiations between France and Scotland. Only a copy of the agreement on the monetary payments of the Scottish king has survived from the Norham treaty, the other contents of the contract are known primarily from the sometimes contradicting reports of various chroniclers. With the conclusion of the treaty, the Scottish king had officially retained his independence and peace, but the treaty provisions made him dependent on the goodwill of John Ohneland. His dependence on Johann was even greater than his dependence on Heinrich II , whom he had recognized as liege lord after the Treaty of Falaise.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Archibald AM Duncan: Scotland. The Making of the Kingdom (The Edinburgh History of Scotland; Vol. I ). Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh 1975. ISBN 0-05-00203-7-4 , p. 242.
  2. ^ SD Church: King John. New interpretations . Boydell, Woodbridge 1999, ISBN 0-85115-947-8 , p. 259.
  3. ^ Archibald AM Duncan: Scotland. The Making of the Kingdom (The Edinburgh History of Scotland; Vol. I ). Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh 1975. ISBN 0-05-00203-7-4 , p. 244.
  4. ^ A b Geoffrey WS Barrow: Scotland and its neighbors in the Middle Ages . Hambledon, London 1992. ISBN 1-85285-052-3 , p. 84.
  5. ^ Archibald AM Duncan: Scotland. The Making of the Kingdom (The Edinburgh History of Scotland; Vol. I ). Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh 1975. ISBN 0-05-00203-7-4 , p. 247.
  6. ^ A b Archibald AM Duncan: Scotland. The Making of the Kingdom (The Edinburgh History of Scotland; Vol. I ). Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh 1975. ISBN 0-05-00203-7-4 , p. 248.
  7. ^ Archibald AM Duncan: Scotland. The Making of the Kingdom (The Edinburgh History of Scotland; Vol. I ). Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh 1975. ISBN 0-05-00203-7-4 , p. 249.
  8. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Scotland and its neighbors in the Middle Ages . Hambledon, London 1992. ISBN 1-85285-052-3 , p. 86.
  9. ^ Archibald AM Duncan: Scotland. The Making of the Kingdom (The Edinburgh History of Scotland; Vol. I ). Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh 1975. ISBN 0-05-00203-7-4 , p. 243.
  10. ^ Archibald AM Duncan: Scotland. The Making of the Kingdom (The Edinburgh History of Scotland; Vol. I ). Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh 1975. ISBN 0-05-00203-7-4 , p. 241.
  11. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Kingship and unity. Scotland 1000-1306 . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2015, ISNB 978-1-4744-0183-8 (Internet resource).