5th July 1560

The Treaty of Edinburgh is signed

An defence pact known as the Auld Alliance, signed by Scotland and France in 1295, committed the two powers to looking after each other’s interests in their disagreements with England. Signed by Scotland’s John Balliol and France’s Philip IV, it was much like the treaty that binds together the members of NATO, where it was agreed that if either party was attacked by England, the other would come to its aid.

English troops leave Scotland

The treaty was renewed by the monarchs of each state for the next two and a half centuries until, in 1560, Queen Elizabeth I agreed the Treaty of Edinburgh with King Francis II of France, who was the husband of Mary Queen of Scots. Upon its signing, both sides agreed to remove their troops from Scotland in accordance with clause three.

As worded, it was a comprehensive peace treaty under the terms of which neither country could send troops to the other except under the authority of their monarchs. Moreover, in its own words, “it was agreed and concluded, That the fort built at Aymouth in the kingdom of Scotland, should have been demolished within three months after the date of the [Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis], razed to the ground, and nothing ever thereafter to have been built there: And although the said fort be in some sort demolished, yet not so as was agreed upon; therefore it is now appointed, agreed, and concluded, That the said fort of Aymouth shall be utterly demolished and razed before the end of four days, after the demolition of Leith shall begin.”

Controversial fort

Aymouth Fort, now known as Eyemouth Fort, had sat on the Scottish-English border at Berwick, and was a Franco-Scottish fort built on the remains of an earlier English structure. It was such an important part of the campaign against England that, when the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis was signed, ending the Italian War of 1551 to 1559 in which England had sided with the Holy Roman Empire, its destruction was one of the terms.