relationship between the medieval kingdom of england and the rest of the british isles

[demanvanwezel]

I've been reading up a bit on this at wikipedia and at times I've come across sentences like "the king of scotland regognised the suzerainity of the king of england" and phrases that imply that the scottish king needed to be recognised by england in order to be legitimate

what's the deal with that? was the king of england seen as somehow superior to the king of scotland?

also there's this whole lord of ireland thing where the english were technicly kings of ireland but not really untill the tudors

I find it all a bit confusing TBH

 

[Yakman]

I've been reading up a bit on this at wikipedia and at times I've come across sentences like "the king of scotland regognised the suzerainity of the king of england" and phrases that imply that the scottish king needed to be recognised by england in order to be legitimate

what's the deal with that? was the king of england seen as somehow superior to the king of scotland?

also there's this whole lord of ireland thing where the english were technicly kings of ireland but not really untill the tudors

I find it all a bit confusing TBH

there was (at times) an understanding that the king of scotland was inferior to the king of england. moreover, there were also times when the king of scotland was also the lord of something or other in england, and thus a vassal of the king of england. so upon becoming king of scotland, he'd have to pay obeisance to the king of england to inherit that part of this demesne.

ireland was kinda like the wild west, where you have feuding factions all competing in a situation which was often quite chaotic. the guys who usually ended up in charge were anglo-norman lords who had extensive connections with england. since there was no native king of ireland, well...

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

I've been reading up a bit on this at wikipedia and at times I've come across sentences like "the king of scotland regognised the suzerainity of the king of england" and phrases that imply that the scottish king needed to be recognised by england in order to be legitimate

what's the deal with that? was the king of england seen as somehow superior to the king of scotland?

also there's this whole lord of ireland thing where the english were technicly kings of ireland but not really untill the tudors

I find it all a bit confusing TBH

With all due respect, blame Wikipedia. You never know who wrote the article, or what their agenda is, or what their qualifications are. A great place to check dates and get an overview, but a bad place to do actual research.

 

[Rubidium]

Gross oversimplification, but essentially:

England was generally wealthier and more powerful than Scotland. It was also the only significant neighbor to the Scots (whereas the English had to deal with the French, the Low Countries, etc., the Scots only had the Norwegians to deal with, who were less inclined to meddle), meaning that they had to deal with each other a lot.

Every now and then, they would get into a war, and if the English won, they'd often try and enforce some level of obedience from the Scottish king, while when the Scottish won, they'd generally tell the English where to stick it. The English would cite the treaties where the Scots had pledged obedience, while the Scots (assuming they were ok with ticking off the English at that particular moment) would cite the treaties where they had told the English to get stuffed. Complicating matters was that nobles would often own land on both sides of the border (even the Scottish kings were frequently also English earls, with the related noble duties that involved), and intermarriage/cross-borderfostering were common.

As an extra wrinkle, when the main line of Scottish kings died out in 1290, the various claimants appealed to the King of England (as the most powerful nearby king, and the one they would have to deal with the most) to mediate things. He did, but then claimed that this gave him suzerainty over Scotland (since they had called on him to be the judge), while some of the Scots disagreed, touching off another round of wars and eventually ending with Robert the Bruce as King of Scotland and another round of general nastiness.

 

[Henry IX]

There was several points where the king of England recognised the king of France as his overloard (for the duchy of Normandy) and the king of Scotland recognised the king of England as his overloard. This recognition was rarely more than token, however. Even at the point of greatest dominance of England over Scotland the English could actually do very little in terms of rulership, although there were a few Scottish legal matters that ended up in the English royal court. Even this limited authority only existed for brief periods of time, most of the period of English overlordship in Scotland the English king had no real power in Scotland at all. It was simply a recognition that the Scottish king was significantly less powerful than the English and hence effectively his junior.

In Ireland the English had considerably more power and impact, with the great Anglo-Norman-Irish lords controlling much of Ireland and with the English king as peace maker and final arbiter of disputes. Although his powers in Ireland were less than in England he still had very significant authority, far more than French kings had over much of their nominal domains. This state of affairs remained fairly stable and produced a period of good governance (at least by medieval standards) until the sectarian divides brought on by the Reformation combined with English attempts to expand their authority further led to the collapse of Irish society and an imposition of far more direct rule from London.

 

[icedt729]

Regarding Ireland, the country wasn't really brought under full English control until the Tudor period. Prior to that there was an ebb and flow of English power on the island that depended on the fortunes of the Hiberno-Norman nobility and on how cooperative they were with the crown. After Anglo-Norman expansion peaked around 1300 many of those nobles actually started to Gaelicize, which started a trend of English power weakening until it was reasserted with a vengeance during the Reformation.

 

[JodelDiplom]

Any guesses on his things might have continued, had there be no reformation in the British isles?

 

[demanvanwezel]

Any guesses on his things might have continued, had there be no reformation in the British isles?

I know that the tudors focussed so much on ireland out of fear that the pope would grant the lordship of ireland to somebody else, which is why they tightened their grip on ireland and made henry king of ireland

so without the reformation ireland would probably either have been completely conquered later or have peacefully transformed into a looser part of the UK

 

[Geriander]

Æthelstan got both the Scots and Welsh to submit to him. The tradition of the King of England being semi-sovreign over both groups continued until Robert the Bruce showed them that it wasn't the case for Scotland.

 

[Gurkhal]

I don't know how important this was in later times but to my understanding the Celts were considered something of barbarians by the Normans and I would suspect that this could create a kind of superior-and-inferior view from an English perspective towards Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

 

[Katsue]

also there's this whole lord of ireland thing where the english were technicly kings of ireland but not really untill the tudors

The title Lord of Ireland was adopted by King Henry II at a time when there was a King of Ireland, Ruaidhrí Ua Conchobhair, who accepted Henry II as his feudal superior at the treaty of Windsor in 1175.