With Alexander's line now extinct, a new period began known as the Competitors for the Crown of Scotland or the "Great Cause", with several families laying claim to the throne.

With Scotland threatening to descend into civil war, King Edward I of England was chosen by the Scottish nobility to serve as arbiter in resolving the succession dispute; he agreed to do so only after the claimants recognised him as lord paramount.

In early November 1292, at a great feudal court held in the castle at Berwick-upon-Tweed, judgement was given in favour of John Balliol having the strongest claim.

He humiliated the Scottish king by forcing him to present himself as a common plaintiff before the English court when he protested Edward's actions.

By July, John was deposed as king and sent into exile; though he did not formally claim the throne for himself, Edward forced over 1,800 Scottish nobles (many of the rest being prisoners of war at that time) to swear homage, thus making him, in effect, ruler of Scotland.

He returned to his father's castle at Avoch on the northern shore of the Moray Firth, where he raised his banner in the name of Scotland's king, John Balliol.

Moray quickly gathered a band of like-minded patriots, and employing hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, began to attack and devastate every English-garrisoned castle from Banff to Inverness.

[1] In early June, Wallace and Douglas planned a symbolic strike to liberate Scone, the seat of the English-appointed Justiciar of Scotland, William de Ormesby.

[1] On hearing about the start of an aristocratic uprising, Edward I, although engaged in events in France, sent a force of foot soldiers and horsemen under Henry Percy and Robert Clifford to resolve the "Scottish problem".

[1] While laying siege to Dundee Castle, Wallace heard that an English army was again advancing north, this time under John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey.

Wallace put the leading men of the town of Dundee in charge of the castle's siege and moved to halt the advance of the English army.

Wallace and Moray, who had recently combined their forces, deployed on the Ochil Hills overlooking the bridge crossing the River Forth at Stirling and prepared to meet the English in battle.

[1] On 11 September 1297, Scottish forces, under the joint command of Moray and Wallace, met the Earl of Surrey's army, at the Battle of Stirling Bridge.

The Scots suffered relatively light casualties, but the death from wounds of Andrew Moray dealt a profound blow to the Scottish cause.

One of his early intentions was to reestablish commercial and diplomatic ties with Europe and win back the overseas trade that Scotland had enjoyed under Alexander III.

[citation needed] There is, however, one Latin document in the archives of the Hanseatic town of Lübeck, which was sent on 11 October 1297 by "Andrew de Moray and William Wallace, leaders of the kingdom of Scotland and the community of the realm."

It told the merchants of Lübeck and Hamburg that they now had free access to all parts of the kingdom of Scotland, which had, by favour of God, been recovered by war from the English.

The Scots laid waste a swathe of countryside before wheeling west into Cumberland and pillaging all the way to Cockermouth, before Wallace led his men back into Northumberland and fired 700 villages.

Wallace was succeeded as Guardian of the Kingdom jointly by Robert Bruce and John Comyn, but they could not see past their personal differences.

During 1299, diplomatic pressure from France and Rome persuaded Edward to release the imprisoned King John into the custody of Pope Boniface VIII.

[7] With the success of the English at Falkirk two years earlier, Edward must have felt in a position to bring Scotland under full control permanently.

Not the least of them possibly was that Bruce found it loathsome to continue sacrificing his followers, family and inheritance for the exiled Scottish king John Balliol.

[1] More serious to the Scottish patriots than the apparent defection of Bruce was the loss of support from Philip IV of France and subsequently, the Pope.

Edward I was now free from embarrassment abroad and at home, and having made preparations for the final conquest of Scotland, he commenced his invasion in the middle of May 1303.

Terms of submission were negotiated on 9 February by John Comyn, who refused to surrender unconditionally, but asked that prisoners of both sides be released by ransom and that Edward agree there would be no reprisals or disinheritance of the Scots.

He was quickly taken through the Scottish countryside, his legs bound beneath his horse, towards London, where, after a show trial, the English authorities had him executed on 23 August 1305, at the Elms of Smithfield in the traditional manner for a traitor.

In the midst of listing punishments to be meted out to other Scots, Edward ordered Robert Bruce to put his castle at Kildrummy "in the keeping of such a man as he himself will be willing to answer for".

Bruce, as Earl of Carrick and now 7th Lord of Annandale, held huge estates and property in both Scotland and England, and had a claim to the Scottish throne.

This led to a conference with Comyn in which Bruce proposed, as the best means of preventing future trouble and for restoring their own privileges and the rights of Scots, that they should henceforward enter into an understanding with each other.

In 1320, the Declaration of Arbroath was signed by the community of the realm of Scotland and sent to Pope John XXII affirming Scottish independence from England.