Treaty of Edinburgh

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 5th of July 1560, the Treaty of Edinburgh was drawn up. It settled a conflict that had turned the Scottish port of Leith into a sustained military siege. French troops garrisoned the town, while a Protestant force backed by England pressed against them. The woman who governed Scotland as regent, Mary of Guise, had died less than a month before the agreement was concluded. At stake was something larger than the fate of a harbor. The treaty was designed to dissolve the Auld Alliance, Scotland's ancient bond with France. In its place would come a new accord between Scotland and England. Whether the Scottish queen in whose name these terms were drawn up would accept them was another matter entirely.

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• 2. The Crisis Behind the Treaty

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  Scottish Protestants had been challenging the rule of Mary of Guise during the Reformation Crisis. They organized as the Lords of the Congregation. Through the Treaty of Berwick, they formally invited an English army north to join them. The siege that followed pitted the combined Protestant and English force against Leith's defenders.

  Once the Treaty of Edinburgh was in force, the occupation began to unwind. Fortifications at Leith, Inchkeith, and Dunbar Castle were dismantled. The French garrisons departed Scotland.

  In 2006, the remains of an artillery fort involved in the siege were found in Edinburgh's Pilrig Park. Two gun emplacements from that era are still visible on Leith Links.

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• 3. The Diplomats' Table

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  Jean de Monluc, Bishop of Valence, led the French delegation alongside Charles de la Rochefoucault, Sieur de Randan. England sent William Cecil and Nicholas Wotton, Dean of Canterbury and York, to represent its interests.

  Three Scottish representatives were also drawn into the process: the Archbishop of St Andrews, John Bellenden of Auchnoul, and William Maitland. All three spoke on behalf of the Congregation. The French delegation was also permitted to visit and console the bereaved ladies-in-waiting of Mary of Guise's court.

  On Monday the 17th of June, Edinburgh Castle fired two cannon shots at 7 o'clock in the evening to mark the cessation of hostilities. That signal cleared the way for formal talks.

  France and England both committed to withdrawing all their land and naval forces from Scotland. Mary and Francis II were required to stop using the arms and signs of England and Ireland in their heraldry. Whether Mary, Queen of Scots would formally put her name to these terms remained to be seen.

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• 4. Mary's Refusal

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  Mary Stuart never ratified the Treaty of Edinburgh, and the source of her resistance was not one thing but several. She had been France's queen consort and remained deeply attached to the French crown. She regarded the Lords of the Congregation not as legitimate representatives of Scotland but as rebels against her mother.

  Elizabeth I stood at the center of Mary's most serious objection. The treaty formally recognized Elizabeth as the rightful monarch of England, a throne Mary herself claimed. To ratify would have meant surrendering that claim in writing.

  France honored the troop withdrawal even without Mary's formal signature. The eventual fall of the Catholic Church in Scotland followed from the removal of that French military backing.

  The Reformation Parliament of 1560 met in August and worked toward a distinct goal: establishing the Protestant church in Scotland. Its acts are sometimes confused with the Treaty of Edinburgh, but the two were separate proceedings. Mary's refusal outlasted considerable pressure upon her until 1567. One last attempt to force the matter came in April 1583, when the Gowrie Regime tried to ratify the treaty on Scotland's behalf.

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