A border city

By the late twelfth century, kings of England had set their mark on the north. They were increasingly enforcing their authority to the extent that Carlisle was changed from being an essentially royal and military frontier hub into a border city acting as a gateway community between the kingdoms of Scotland and England. From the late thirteenth century, Carlisle found itself at the centre of a bitter Anglo-Scottish dispute that flared into war from 1296, an understanding of which is important in the context of Carlisle becoming a ‘punch-bag’ for the Scots. The wording of the Treaty of York with regard to the question of whether the Scottish kingdom was wholly independent of Westminster, or whether the English crown could legally exercise an overlordship or suzerainty, was ambiguous. The Anglo-Scottish border is an entirely artificial construct. It is neither natural, nor was it defensible except for limited stretches.