Scotland, England and France after the Loss of Normandy, 1204–1296

Relations between countries in the thirteenth century involved much more than high-level diplomacy. This study by M.A. Pollock is centred on a detailed analysis of families which held land in Scotland, France and England. For example, the marriage of the Scottish king William the Lion to Ermengarde de Beaumont led to the forging of further links in succeeding generations. Ermengarde’s nephew Richard was lord of Crail in Fife as well as being vicomte de Beaumont. In the late thirteenth century, Isabel de Beaumont married John de Vescy, grandson of an illegitimate daughter of the Lion. In this densely argued and massively footnoted book, Pollock demonstrates the contrast between the late-twelfth-century court of William the Lion, in which there were many with lands in England and France, and the position by the end of the thirteenth century, when only four major Scottish families had succeeded in maintaining cross-Channel links. On the other hand, Anglo-Scottish links on the eve of the Wars of Independence were strong, with half the lordships in Scotland held by families which had some English possessions. It is not always easy to know where allegiances lay; for example, John de Vescy is described by Pollock as an Anglo-French Scot, though his career as a loyal supporter and friend of Edward I suggests that he regarded himself first and foremost as English

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