Boulogne agreement

The Boulogne agreement was a document signed by a group of English magnates in 1308, concerning the government of Edward II. After the death of Edward I in 1307, discontent soon developed against the new king. This was partly due to lingering problems from the previous reign, but also related to issues with Edward II himself. Particularly his abandonment of the Scottish Wars and his patronage of the unpopular Piers Gaveston caused discontent. Drawn up in Boulogne-sur-Mer during the king's nuptials, the document vaguely asserted the signatories' duty to guard the rights of the Crown. Three months later, the agreement was the basis for another document, justifying opposition to the king. This latter document, the so-called Declaration of 1308, is notable for its use of the "doctrine of capacities": the distinction between the person of the King and the institution of the Crown.

The document today exists only in a 17th-century transcript by the antiquarian William Dugdale. The Boulogne agreement was largely unknown to modern historians up until the 1960s, but it is now considered significant because it is the first documented expression of the conflict between king and nobility, which was to dominate so much of the reign of Edward II.^[1] Though historians agree on the document's importance, there is still disagreement over its interpretation, particularly whether the signatories should be seen as oppositional or loyal to the king.