Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Treaty of Edinburgh

On July 6, 1560, the Treaty of Edinburgh was signed, between Elizabeth I of England and France.  This treaty ended the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France, and of more direct import, the Siege of Leith, which had begun the previous year.  French troops, which had been encamped at Leith for twelve years, removed from Scotland permanently at this point.

Sir Walter Scott makes a comment in the introduction to his "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border" regarding Leith:

'The flame of reformation, long stifled in Scotland, now burst forth, with the violence of a volcanic eruption. The siege of Leith was commenced, by the combined forces of the Congregation and of England. The borderers cared little about speculative points of religion; but they shewed themselves much interested in the treasures which passed through their country, for payment of the English forces at Edinburgh. Much alarm was excited, lest the marchers should intercept these weighty protestant arguments; and it was, probably, by voluntarily imparting a share in them to Lord Home, that he became a sudden convert to the new faith.'

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