On 5 July 1560 the commissioners of Elizabeth I of England and the Scottish Lords of the Congregation, along with French representatives in Scotland, drew up the Treaty of Edinburgh. This treaty formally concluded the Siege of Leith, the twelve-year occupation by French troops of that port. It was agreed that ‘all the military forces pertaining to either party [England and France] shall depart out of Scotland’ and that ‘all manner of warlike preparations … in France against the English … shall hereafter cease’. Shortly aft er the signing of this treaty the Reformation Parliament met, approving the Scots Confession and confirming Scotland's conversion to Protestantism. Both of these events have contributed to a tradition of scholarship that sees the year 1560 as marking the end of the historic Auld Alliance between France and Scotland: a mutual, defensive, military alliance against the might of England that had been in force since 1295. This chapter tests such claims, highlighting certain facets of the Auld Alliance that remained in place after 1560. In the process, a fundamental contention of this book will be established: that the Auld Alliance contributed to the ongoing development of the Franco-Scottish relationship throughout the early modern period. This perspective not only alters our view of this specific association, but changes how we should view the development of Great Britain domestically, her overseas relationships and the broader political dynamic within Europe.

I

On 23 October 1295, prompted by the ambitions of Edward I, France and Scotland agreed a mutually defensive alliance against England in the Treaty of Paris. The alliance was conceived as a military one, intended to guarantee both parties support from the other in the case of an English invasion.