The treaties that solidify Scotland's status as an independent nation

Indeed it does, and there are a number of other treaties involving Scotland which comprehensively prove that this independent country was a recognised and respected nation in its own right for centuries. I’ll be choosing a handful of those treaties this week and next and show how important they were to Scottish independence back in the day.

No matter how our independence is regained, we will require that status to be recognised by the international community, most probably through membership of the United Nations and either EFTA or the European Union. I see no alternative but for us to sign new treaties with the remainder of the UK, and many other countries and institutions beside, and in that way our status as a nation state will be recognised – again, as I always emphasise.

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The most important treaty in Scottish history was the Treaty of Union because that was the process by which we lost our status as a nation state. The Union created a new unitary state called the United Kingdom, but never stopped the existence of Scotland as a country – that can never be said enough as Unionists tend to believe that it did and that the UK is now the country of which Scotland is merely a part, a region, a sub-division.

Scotland was a nation state and recognised as such from the middle of the ninth century to 1707 when the parcel of rogues took the bribes to end that status. The following treaties prove that point.

Though undoubtedly there were agreements between the Kingdom of Scotland and its neighbours before the 11th century, there was also the hugely important recognition of Scotland by the Papacy – Macbeth is said to have visited Rome in 1050 where he distributed alms and was treated as a monarch by Pope Leo IX. Subsequent popes also issued bulls – letters containing decisions on clerical matters – which clearly saw Scotland as an independent nation.

The first formal international secular treaty involving Scotland that I know of was the Treaty of Abernethy signed in 1072 between Malcolm III (Canmore) of Scotland and William I of England. As the Conqueror and victor of the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William had to subdue several rebellions to cement his control of England. In 1069-70, he left London with a formidable army and carried out the so-called “Harrowing of the North” in which he brutally put down an insurrection by Anglo-Saxon and Danish earls, mostly in Yorkshire.

The last native claimant to the throne of England was Edgar Aetheling of the Anglo-Saxon House of Wessex who had taken refuge at Malcolm Canmore’s court where the king married Edgar’s sister Margaret (below).

Seeing the disarray just south of his land, Malcolm Canmore invaded the north of England in 1071 in an effort to enlarge his territory. That provoked William the Conqueror to put together his army again, it being probably the most formidable fighting force in Europe at the time, reliant on mounted knights that swept aside all opposition.

In 1072, the Conqueror came into Scotland, determined to force Malcolm to expel the Aethelings.

The Norman army got to within 10 miles of Perth to the village of Abernethy where the two kings met and settled an agreement which was in effect a peace treaty.

Sadly the Treaty of Abernethy has not survived and no copy of it exists, but the contemporary Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states what happened in 1072: “This year king William led an army and a fleet against Scotland, and he stationed the ships along the coast and crossed the Tweed with his army; but he found nothing to reward his pains. And king Malcolm came and treated with king William, and delivered hostages, and became his liege-man; and king William returned home with his forces.”

This is the first recorded instance of any English king claiming overlordship of Scotland. It would be a recurring theme for many decades afterwards.

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We do know that Edgar Aetheling left his brother-in-law’s court while Malcolm was given land in Cumbria, and while he may have paid homage to the Conqueror for those lands, I very much doubt that Malcolm became William’s “liege-man”.

Malcolm certainly had no intention of being the “liege-man” of the Conqueror’s successor, his son William II, known to history as William Rufus. Malcolm invaded the north of England in 1091 and again in 1093, and it was during the second invasion that the King of Scots and his heir were killed at the Battle of Alnwick. His widow Margaret, who did so much to change Scotland, died of grief just days after the deaths of Malcolm and their son Edward.

The next important treaty between Scotland and England was again a peace treaty, called the Treaty of Durham – in fact there were two, both signed by King David I of Scotland and King Stephen of England.

In 1136, David’s army invaded the north of England and took large areas of territory, but Stephen came north with an army mainly consisting of Flemish mercenaries and in return for keeping a large area stretching from Carlisle to Lancashire, David signed the first Treaty of Durham.

Stephen’s reign was bedevilled by rebellions and a long internecine strife with the Empress Matilda – niece of David I who supported her claim to the English throne – and her forces.

After the Scots’ defeat at the Battle of the Standard in August, 1138, Stephen wanted peace with David I in order that he could deal with Empress Matilda’s invasion, so the two kings agreed the second Treaty of Durham in 1139.

This not only brought David’s son Henry the earldom of Northumbria but also formally recognised the independence of Scotland, the first such recognition in any treaty. It would not be the last.