Treaty of Abernethy

The Treaty of Abernethy was signed at the Scottish village of Abernethy in 1072 where king Malcolm III of Scotland paid homage to William I, King of England, acknowledging William as his feudal overlord.

William, better known as William the Conqueror, had started his conquest of England when he and his army landed in Sussex defeating and killing, the English king Harold, at the Battle of Hastings, in 1066. Most of the English nobility were also either killed at Hastings or replaced by Norman lords in the years following the battle.

The battle of Hastings was not the end of the fighting, William's army had to suppress many rebellions to secure the kingdom. As a result of the unrest, some English nobles had sought sanctuary, in Scotland, at the court of Malcolm III. One of these was Edgar Ætheling, a member of the house of Wessex and thus the last English claimant to the throne of England.

Faced with a hostile Scotland, in alliance with disaffected English lords including Ætheling, William rode north with his Norman army and forced Malcolm to sign the Treaty of Abernethy. Although the specific details of the treaty are lost in history, it is known that in return for swearing allegiance to William, Malcolm was given estates in Cumbria and Edgar Ætheling was banned from the Scottish court.

In 1040, Duncan I of Scotland had been killed in battle by Macbeth. Duncan's son Malcolm was forced to seek safety in England. Fifteen years later Malcolm was able to avenge the death of his father at the Battle of Lumphanan, where Macbeth was killed. Lulach, Macbeth's step-son, succeeded to the throne of Scotland briefly before he too died at Malcolm's hands in 1058. With the death of Lulach, Malcolm became King of Scots. During the course of his reign Malcolm invaded the northern counties of England numerous times. The counties of Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland were historically claimed by Scotland.

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