What Was the Auld Alliance? | The Hundred Years' War

The Auld Alliance was the diplomatic and military agreement between the Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of Scotland, first signed on 23 October 1295 at the end of the Scottish Wars of Independence. The alliance was directed against English aggression, and it remained a central feature of European politics for the next three centuries. During the Hundred Years’ War the Auld Alliance was a major strategic concern for the English, and French support for Scotland helped to stretch English military resources to the breaking point. The standard treatment is the essay in the Oxford History of England; Ranald Nicholson’s Scotland: The Later Middle Ages (1974) gives the Scottish context. Jonathan Sumption’s The Hundred Years’ War covers the operation of the alliance in the period.

The treaty of 1295

The treaty was signed at Paris on 23 October 1295, in the wake of Edward I of England’s invasion of Scotland and the beginning of the Scottish Wars of Independence. The Scots, who were fighting for their independence, appealed to the French for help, and the French, who were at that moment the principal enemy of the English, responded with the alliance. The original treaty was a mutual defence pact: if either kingdom was attacked by England, the other would invade English territory. The treaty was the foundation for a long period of French-Scottish cooperation, and it would be renewed several times over the following centuries.

The treaty was confirmed by the marriage of the French king Philip IV’s son Charles of Valois to the Scottish princess Margaret in 1299 (the marriage was eventually annulled), and by the subsequent marriages of Scottish and French royal children. The most famous of these later marriages was the marriage of the young Scottish king James IV to Margaret Tudor, the daughter of Henry VII of England, in 1503. The French-Scottish marriage of Mary Queen of Scots to the French dauphin Francis in 1558 was the last of the long series.

The alliance in the Hundred Years’ War

The Auld Alliance was a major strategic factor in the Hundred Years’ War. The English, who were fighting a major war in France, were forced to maintain substantial garrisons on the Scottish border to defend against French-supported Scottish raids. The Scottish raids, which were often small in scale, were nevertheless a significant drain on English resources, and they helped to stretch the English military establishment to the breaking point. The French, for their part, used the alliance as a permanent opening against the English in the north.

The alliance was renewed by Philip VI in 1326, and again in 1338 in the opening phase of the Hundred Years’ War. The most important use of the Auld Alliance in the Edwardian phase came in 1346, when a French-supported Scottish army under King David II invaded northern England. The Scottish army was defeated by the English at the Battle of Neville’s Cross on 17 October 1346, and David was captured and taken to England, where he was held prisoner for eleven years. The Scottish defeat was a serious blow to the alliance, but the alliance itself continued.

The alliance in the Caroline and Lancastrian phases

The Auld Alliance continued to be a major strategic factor in the Caroline and Lancastrian phases. The French, who were eager to maintain the alliance, sent substantial subsidies to Scotland, and French troops occasionally served in Scottish armies. The most important use of the alliance in the Caroline phase came in 1385, when a French-supported Scottish army under the Earl of Douglas invaded northern England. The campaign, which was also attended by a small French force under Jean de Vienne, demonstrated the continuing importance of the alliance, but it achieved no significant military success.

The most spectacular use of the Auld Alliance in the Lancastrian phase came at the Battle of Verneuil on 17 August 1424. A Franco-Scottish army, composed principally of Scottish knights and men-at-arms under the Earl of Douglas, joined the French army of the Duke of Alençon in an attempt to relieve the English siege of Verneuil. The English, under John, Duke of Bedford, won a decisive victory. The Scottish contingent was virtually annihilated, and the Scottish prisoners, who were treated as rebels, were executed by the English after the battle. The Scottish losses at Verneuil were the worst single defeat of the long Anglo-Scottish conflict. The alliance, however, was not broken.

The operations of the alliance

The alliance worked, in practice, through three main mechanisms. The first was the French subsidy, paid in cash to the Scottish crown in return for military operations against England. The subsidy was modest in absolute terms — perhaps £2,000–£4,000 a year in the early phases, more in periods of crisis — but it was sufficient to keep the Scottish war alive at a level the English could not ignore. The second was the occasional French expeditionary force: the small force under Jean de Vienne in 1385, the larger Franco-Scottish force at Verneuil in 1424. The third was the diplomatic recognition of the Scottish kingdom, which gave the Scottish crown a status and a protection that it would not otherwise have had.

The French strategic interest in the alliance was not, in the first instance, the defeat of England. It was the stretching of English military resources. The French could not, in any plausible scenario, defeat the English in a major battle; the most they could hope to do was to force the English to divide their forces. The Scottish war, maintained by French subsidies, was the principal means of forcing that division. The English had to fight on two fronts, and the Scottish front was the more expensive in terms of men and money.

The end of the alliance

The Auld Alliance continued to be a factor in European politics long after the end of the Hundred Years’ War. The alliance was renewed several times, and it remained an important element of French foreign policy until the seventeenth century. The most famous renewal was the Treaty of Rouen of 1517, which was followed by the marriage of the young Scottish king James V to the French princess Madeleine of France in 1537.

The alliance was definitively broken by the personal union of 1603, when James VI of Scotland succeeded Elizabeth I as James I of England. The Scottish and English crowns were united in a single person, and the Auld Alliance, which had rested on the assumption of a separate Scottish foreign policy, became meaningless. The alliance was formally renounced by the Scots in 1560, after the Reformation had made the Catholic French alliance politically impossible; the political union of 1603 was the closing of a long constitutional tradition.

Significance

The Auld Alliance is one of the longest-lasting diplomatic arrangements in European history. The alliance, which had its origins in the late thirteenth century, continued in some form for more than 300 years, and it was a major factor in European politics throughout the period. The alliance, however, is now remembered mostly as a footnote to the Hundred Years’ War, and it has been largely forgotten in popular memory. The historical importance of the alliance is in the strategic effect: it forced the English to maintain a permanent military presence on the Scottish border, even when fighting a major war in France, and it helped to stretch the English military establishment to the breaking point. The English, in the standard reading of Sumption, lost the Hundred Years’ War in part because they could not afford to fight on two fronts.