Treaty of Falaise

During the next 15 years, William was forced to observe Henry's overlordship, such as needing to obtain permission from the English crown before putting down local uprisings.

The treaty was annulled in 1189 when King Richard I, Henry's successor, was distracted by his interest in joining the Third Crusade, and William's offer of 10,000 marks sterling.

[4] The ill-defined border of northern England and southern Scotland had been a matter of dispute depending on the relative power and relationship between Scottish and English kings in the 12th century.

[3] While he had sworn allegiance to his niece Matilda as Henry I's successor in 1127, this may have amounted to a principled pretext for his invasion as David believed that Northumbria and Cumberland were his by right through his late wife.

[4] Through the second Treaty of Durham in 1139, he secured from Stephen Scottish control of these border lands, including the Earldom of Northumbria for his son, Henry, father of Malcolm and William.

Perhaps taking a cue from his grandfather's maneuvers, William attempted to capitalize on Henry's divided attentions by pressing his claim for Northumbria and Cumberland in 1166.

Joining Henry to quell unrest in Normandy, William participated in the military campaign, perhaps as a gesture of good faith, but ultimately returned to Scotland empty-handed.

[4] A letter sent to Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, around this time describes Henry's anger when one of his knights spoke favorably of William, depicting a deteriorating personal relationship between the two kings.

While directing a scattered series of raids in Northumbria, on 13 July 1174, William left himself with only a small retinue of knights and was surprised by a force of Henry's loyalists at Alnwick.

With the main threat on his northern front subdued, on 26 July Henry had William brought to him at Northampton “with his feet fastened beneath a horse’s belly,” an especially demeaning way to treat a fellow king.

[7] As per the agreement, Henry arranged a public ceremony, held in York on 10 August 1175, where William sealed the document in front of his brother and heir, David, and a host of Scottish nobles, and the Treaty was read aloud for all to witness.

And (again after the castles have been handed over) the earls and barons aforesaid shall be released, but only after each one has delivered his own hostage, to wit, his legitimate son if he has one, or otherwise his nephew or nearest heir.

[4] As further punishment, five castles – Roxburgh, Berwick, Jedburgh, Edinburgh, and Stirling - were also handed over to Henry, to be manned by English soldiers at Scotland’s expense.

To further secure the subservience of Scotland writ large, barons and bishops not present would be required to perform the same liege homage, and hostages comprising their heirs or nearest kin turned over.

Negotiated while William was prisoner, or rather dictated to him, the public act of submission occurred at the church of St. Peter’s in York in front of the chief men of the English kingdom.

[10] Two crucial drafting details stand out that add to the scale of humiliation: “Scotland was recurrently referred to as a land (terra), not as a kingdom (regnum) thereby anticipating by over a century Edward I’s vocabulary of demotion, while the premier-league status of Henry II’s title as ‘the lord king’ (dominus rex) stood in pointed superiority to that of William, merely ‘king of the Scots’ (rex Scottorum).”[10] This concept of an English ‘overlordship’ or ‘high kingship’ would define this relationship throughout the duration of the Treaty.

[4] In Moray and Ross, brooding anger among certain nobles gave rise to potential challengers to the kingship, principally Donald MacWilliam, a possibly illegitimate descendant of Duncan II.

[4] In 1186, Henry selected Ermengarde, his kinswoman but the daughter of a relatively minor noble Richard, viscount of Beaumont, and for his gift he returned to William the castle at Edinburgh.

[4] For Henry, the Treaty was just another feather in his cap after quashing the rebellion; for he had already brought his rebellious children back in the fold, and neutralized Queen Eleanor by sentencing her to confinement under guard at various castles, a punishment he maintained for the rest of his life.

The abbot sought Henry's protection because of continued harassment at the port of Musselburgh from the English garrison stationed at nearby Edinburgh, not in response to an action William had taken as king of Scots.

[1] A happenstance of timing during the rebellion played to his good fortune, as he performed public penance at Thomas Becket’s tomb on his return to England on 12 July 1174.

[4] With William’s capture occurring the following day, Henry was at once able to move past the ugliness associated with Becket’s murder and claim divine intervention on his, and England’s, behalf against the Scots, the French, and his own children.

Know ye that we have restored to our most dearly-beloved cousin William, by the same grace of king of the Scots, his castles of Roxburgh and Berwick, to be held by him and his heirs for ever as his own of hereditary right.

Regarding its provisos relating to the Church of England’s dominion over its Scottish counterpart, the Treaty of Falaise ultimately forced the opposite result.

Henry tried to force the subjection of Scottish bishops per the Treaty at a council in Northampton, but a dispute between the archbishops of Canterbury and York over which of them should be Scotland’s metropolitan allowed time for an appeal to Rome.

The revocation of the Treaty provided for a century of uneasy alliance, until Edward I capitalized on a succession crisis to re-assert England's complete control over Scotland, leading to the Scottish Wars of Independence beginning in 1296.