Second War of Scottish Independence

In 1346, Edward led a large English army through northern France, sacking Caen, heavily defeating the French at Crécy and besieging Calais.

The treaty prohibited any Scottish citizen from bearing arms against Edward III or any of his men until the sum was paid in full and the English were supposed to stop attacking Scotland.

[2] Subsequent events went less well for the English and by 1323 Robert Bruce (r. 1306–1329) was securely on the Scottish throne and had carried out several major raids deep into England,[3][4] leading to the signing in May of a 13-year truce.

[6] After the newly crowned 14-year-old King Edward III was nearly captured by the Scots in the English disaster at Stanhope Park in 1327, his regents, his mother Isabella of France and her lover Roger Mortimer, were forced to the negotiating table.

To further seal the peace, Robert's very young son and heir David married Joan, the likewise youthful sister of Edward.

[7] Some Scottish nobles, refusing to swear fealty to Bruce, were disinherited and left Scotland to join forces with Edward Balliol, the eldest son of King John.

[9] In 1331, under the leadership of Edward Balliol and Henry Beaumont, Earl of Buchan, the disinherited Scottish nobles gathered in Yorkshire to plot an invasion of Scotland.

Unable to break the line of English men-at-arms, the Scots became trapped in a valley with fresh forces arriving from the rear pressing them forward and giving them no room to manoeuvre, or even to use their weapons.

[15] Balliol's support within Scotland was limited and he was subject to constant military challenge; for example, on 7 October David's partisans recaptured Perth and destroyed its walls.

He appealed to Edward for assistance,[17][18] who dropped all pretence of neutrality, recognised Balliol as king of Scotland and made ready for war.

To engage the English, the Scots had to advance downhill, cross a large area of marshy ground and climb the northern slope of Halidon Hill.

The survivors continued upwards, through the arrows "as thick as motes in a sun beam", according to an unnamed contemporary quoted by Ranald Nicholson,[37] and on to the waiting spears.

Both led excursions into the surrounding western lowlands, destroying the property of friend and foe alike, but found no Scottish troops, while more of Balliol's former supporters defected to the Bruce faction.

The senior Scottish nobility fell out and could not agree on a position for the peace negotiations, while Edward seems to have been happy to use the episode as an opportunity to rebuild his finances and reassemble an army.

[59] During the spring of 1335 Edward assembled an army of more than 13,000 men on the Scottish border, the largest force he ever led against the Scots, timing his invasion to the expiration of the truce.

[60] The French, exasperated, assembled an army of 6,000 men to send to Scotland to restore David II and started to interfere in English possessions in France, even threatening to confiscate them.

Philip wrote to Edward asking him to submit the rival claims on the Scottish throne to arbitration by Pope Benedict XII to avoid an Anglo-French war.

While Edward spent the spring raising funds for the Scottish war and making arrangements to guard the English south coast, his subordinates further north struck repeatedly against the Scots.

Informed of the planned French descent on Scotland, Edward rode rapidly north, joining Balliol in Perth on 28 June.

Arriving too late to strike at the French ships, he imposed new war taxes and returned to Scotland to winter in a fortress on the Clyde.

[70] Edward needed to guard the coast of England against the French and was attempting to form a field army to campaign on the continent again, but still found enough troops to send an expedition to Scotland in 1338.

After several bitter campaigns, in which both sides freely destroyed crops and villages to limit their opponents' freedom of manoeuvre, the Scots wore down the English.

[71] By 1340 the English influence in Scotland was limited to a handful of fortifications, Stirling being the most northerly, all of them either besieged or blockaded and supplied by sea from England.

The teenage David II returned to Scotland on 2 June with his wife Joan, Edward's sister, and attempted to establish his own authority and surround himself with his own people; inflaming an already tense situation.

Philip pleaded with David to fulfil Scottish obligations under the Auld Alliance and invade England: "I beg you, I implore you ... Do for me what I would willingly do for you in such a crisis and do it as quickly ... as you are able.

[82][83] The invasion had been expected by the English for some time and when raising his army to invade France Edward had exempted the counties north of the River Humber.

The English men-at-arms then attacked and after fighting with what Jonathan Sumption describes as "ferocious courage", the remaining Scots attempted unsuccessfully to retreat and were routed.

There, on 20 January, Balliol surrendered his nominal position as king of Scotland in favour of Edward, his overlord, in exchange for a generous pension.

[112][113][note 5] This destroyed any Scottish hopes of satisfying their war aims as part of a French-imposed general treaty and raised the possibility that English troops would be freed up for further campaigning in Scotland.

[116] The treaty prohibited any Scottish citizen from bearing arms against Edward III or any of his men until the sum was paid in full and the English were supposed to stop attacking Scotland.