The moment that his father was dead, Edward broke up the
The Scottish expedition abandoned.
great army that had been mustered at Carlisle, and returned home. If the campaign had been pursued, there was every chance of crushing Bruce, whose position was still most precarious, for all the fortresses of the land were held by the English, and most of the Scottish nobles still refused to join the pretender. But Edward only sent north a small force under the Earl of Pembroke, which made no head against the forces of Bruce.
Ascendency of Piers Gaveston.
When Edward settled down in his kingship, the English nation found itself confronted by a new problem—how to deal with a king who altogether refused to trouble himself about the governance of the realm. He referred all men who came to him to his "good brother Piers," and went about his pleasures without further concern. When, a few months after his accession, he was to wed Isabel, the daughter of the King of France, he went over-sea, leaving the regency in the hands of the Gascon upstart, whom he created Earl of Cornwall, granting him the old royal earldom that had been held by the descendants of Richard, the brother of Henry III. He also gave him in marriage his niece, the daughter of the Earl of Gloucester, and lavished upon him a number of royal estates.
Baronage and people alike were moved to wrath by seeing the king hand over the governance of the realm to his favourite. The proud nobles who had been content to bend before Edward's father, would not for a moment yield to a king who was but the creature of Gaveston. Troubles began almost immediately on the young king's accession; he was besought, in and out of Parliament, to dismiss the Gascon. He bowed before the storm, and sent him out of England for the moment—but only to give him higher honours by making him Lord Deputy of Ireland. When the king recovered from his fright, Gaveston was recalled, and returned more powerful and more arrogant than before (1309).
The Scottish war.
Meanwhile the war in Scotland was going very badly. Many of the nobles, after long doubting, joined Bruce, because they saw that they were likely to get little protection from the feeble king whom they had hitherto served. Several important places fell into the insurgents' hands, and it was universally felt that only a great expedition headed by the king himself could stay Bruce's progress.