AULD ALLIANCE
[MONCRIEFF, Thomas].
Memoirs concerning the ancient Alliance between the French and Scots, and the Privileges of the Scots in France. Together with the original French, faithfully extracted several Records of that Kingdom. Edinburgh, Printed by W. Cheyne, and sold by W. Gordon, and other Booksellers in Town. 1751.
Edinburgh, Printed by W. Cheyne, and sold by W. Gordon, and other Booksellers in Town. 1751.
8vo., pp. 5, [3], 77, [3]; [4],72, complete with half-title and errata leaf, the second part, in French, with separate title-page, pagination and register; a very good copy, wholly untrimmed and the second part unopened, in contemporary quarter sheep and marbled boards (a little rubbed).
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Memoirs concerning the ancient Alliance between the French and Scots, and the Privileges of the Scots in France. Together with the original French, faithfully extracted several Records of that Kingdom. Edinburgh, Printed by W. Cheyne, and sold by W. Gordon, and other Booksellers in Town. 1751.
First edition. The ancient alliance between Scotland and France, forged in the Middle Ages, some historians say as early as the reign of Charlemagne, was frequently invoked in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Memoirs begins with an excerpt from the treaty of 1326 between Charles IV and Robert I, apparently the earliest actual text that the author could find.
Although principally a military and diplomatic alliance that included establishment of the Garde Écossaise (the ‘Scots Guards’) and privileges for Scottish merchants trading in France’, the entente affected the lives of the Scottish population in a number of ways, including architecture, law, cuisine, and language (at the height of the alliance, French was widely spoken in Scotland). This influence was due in part to Scottish mercenaries in French armies, in part to the merchants, and in part to Scots attending French universities, practices which were common until the Napoleonic Wars.
