Treaty of Westminster (1462)

The Treaty of Westminster (or the Treaty of Westminster-Ardtornish) was signed on 13 February 1462 between

Edward IV of England of the House of York and the Scottish John of Islay, Earl of Ross, Lord of the Isles. The agreement proposed that if Scotland was conquered by England, the lands north of the Scottish sea (the Firth of Forth) would be divided between the Lord of the Isles and the Earl of Douglas

to be held from the crown of England, while the Earl of Douglas would hold Scotland south of the Firth.

Background

The Scottish crown in the minority of James III of Scotland had taken the Lancastrian side in the Wars of the Roses by welcoming the fugitive Henry VI of England. Edward IV was forming new alliances with disaffected English and Scottish nobles to reduce the threat posed by the exiled former king, now in the hands of James III's mother Mary of Guelders.

Process

The Earl of Douglas and his brother

Donald Balagh, and his son and heir John, with all the people of Ross and the Isles would become subjects of Edward IV on Whitsunday.^[1]

Consequences

The historian Norman Macdougall thought that the significance of the agreement was overplayed by earlier historians, such as Andrew Lang, who described it as an attempt to "stab Scotland in the back with a Celtic dirk." Its consequence was an attack by the Earl of Ross on crown lands near Inverness in 1462 and 1463.^[2]

The Scottish crown allied with Edward IV by the

Lordship of the Isles

itself.

The Douglases and England

It is notable that

Treaty of Perpetual Peace (1502) and its offspring, the Treaty of Greenwich. The Douglases were generally, at that time, the heads of the pro-English party in Scotland, pushing for what eventually became a Union of the Crowns and Kingdom of Great Britain

.

References

^ Foedera, vol. 5 part 1, Hague (1741), pp. 107–109, see external links.
^ Macdougall, James III, John Donald (1982), p. 59, citing Lang, Andrew, History of Scotland vol. 1, (1900), p. 336.
^ Macdougall, Norman, James III, (1982), p. 121: J. & R. Munro ed., Acts of the Lords of the Isles, (SHS, Edinburgh 1986), pp. lxx–lxxii.

External links

Timeline for Scotland during the 1400s
Landscapes of Scotland
Rymer, Thomas, Foedera, conventiones, literae,... inter Reges Angliae et alios, vol. 5 part 1 & 2, Johannes Neaulm, Hague, (1741) (Latin), (material from Foedera, vol.11 & 12 (1710-1)), in part 1; p. 107-109.
Lang, Andrew, A History of Scotland from the Roman Occupation, vol. 1, Blackwood, Edinburgh (1900), pp. 336–7.

[1] Foedera, vol. 5 part 1, Hague (1741), pp. 107–109, see external links.

[2] Macdougall, James III, John Donald (1982), p. 59, citing Lang, Andrew, History of Scotland vol. 1, (1900), p. 336.

[3] Macdougall, Norman, James III, (1982), p. 121: J. & R. Munro ed., Acts of the Lords of the Isles, (SHS, Edinburgh 1986), pp. lxx–lxxii.

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