Treaty of Falaise

The Treaty of Falaise was an agreement made in December 1174 by the captive William I, King of Scots, and the English King Henry II.

Having been captured at the Battle of Alnwick, during an invasion of Northumbria, William was being held in Falaise in Normandy, while Henry sent an army north and took several Scottish castles, including Berwick, and Edinburgh. With no heir, William had no option but to bargain for release, or see the end of the Scottish line of kings.

William therefore had to swear an oath of allegiance to his neighbouring monarch. English soldiers continued garrisonning Scotland's castles, and Scotland was heavily taxed to pay for their upkeep.The Struggle for Mastery page 226: "By the Treaty of Falaise in 1174 William was released, but in return for acknowledging that his kingdom was henceforth a fief held from the king of England. Henry was also to receive hommage and fealty from the earls and barons and other men of "the land of the king". All of this was to be guaranteed though the surrender by King William of the castles of Roxburgh, Berwick, Jedburgh, , Edinburgh and Sterling.] The treaty was cancelled 15 years later when Richard the Lionheart, the new English king effectively sold southern Scotland back to the Scottish king to help fund Richard's Crusade in the Holy Land [The Struggle for Mastery: "With Richard in a hurry, a bargain was quickly struck. William gave £6,666 to recover the castles of Berwick and Roxburgh and free his realm from the subjection to England imposed in 1174.]

References.