The victory of Halidon added greatly to the popularity of Edward III, for the English looked upon the shame of Bannockburn as avenged, and they sang:
"Scots out of Berwick and out of Aberdeen,
At the Burn of Bannock, ye were far too keen,
Many guiltless men ye slew, as was clearly seen.
King Edward has avenged it now, and fully too, I ween,
He has avenged it well, I ween. Well worth the while!
I bid you all beware of Scots, for they are full of guile.
"'Tis now, thou rough-foot, brogue-shod Scot, that begins thy care,
Then boastful barley-bag-man, thy dwelling is all bare.
False wretch and forsworn, whither wilt thou fare?
Hie thee unto Bruges, seek a better biding there!
There, wretch, shalt thou stay and wait a weary while;
Thy dwelling in Dundee is lost for ever by thy guile."[51]
In Scotland, the party of independence was, for the time, helpless. Edward and Balliol divided the country between them. The eight counties of Dumfries, Roxburgh, Berwick, Selkirk, Peebles, Haddington, Edinburgh, and Linlithgow formed the English king's share of the spoil, along with a reassertion of his supremacy over the rest of Scotland. English officers began to rule between the Tweed and the Forth. But the cause of independence was never really hopeless. Balliol and the English party were soon weakened by internal dissensions, and the leaders on the patriotic side were not slow to take advantage of the opportunities thus given them. It was, indeed, necessary to send King David and his wife to France, and they landed at Boulogne in May, 1334. But from France, in return, came the young Earl of Moray, who, along with Robert the High Steward, son of Marjory Bruce, and next heir to the throne, took up the duties of guardians. The arrival of Moray gave fresh life to the cause, but there is little interest in the records of the struggle. The Scots won two small successes at the Borough-Muir of Edinburgh and at Kilblain. But the victory in the skirmish at the Borough-Muir (August, 1335) was more unfortunate than defeat, for it deprived Scotland for some time of the services of the Earl of Moray. He had captured Guy de Namur and conducted him to the borders, and was himself taken prisoner while on his journey northwards. Sir Andrew Moray of Bothwell, who had been made guardian after the battle of Dupplin, and was captured in April, 1333, had now been ransomed, and he was again recognized as regent for David II. So strong was the Scottish party that Balliol had to flee to England for assistance, and, in 1336, Edward III again appeared in Scotland. It was not a very heroic effort for the future victor of Crécy; he marched northwards to Elgin, and, on his way home, burned the town of Aberdeen.
As in the first war the turning-point had proved to be the death of Edward I in the summer of 1307, so now, exactly thirty years later, came another decisive event. In the autumn of 1337, Edward III first styled himself King of France, and the diversion of his energies from the Scots to their French allies rendered possible the final overthrow of Balliol and the Scottish traitors. The circumstances are, however, parallel only to the extent that an intervention of fortune rendered possible the victory of Scottish freedom. In 1337 there was no great leader: the hour had come, but not the man. For the next four years, castle after castle fell into Scottish hands; many of the tales are romantic enough, but they do not lead to a Bannockburn. The only incident of any significance is the defence of the castle of Dunbar. The lord of Dunbar was the Earl of March, whose record throughout the troubles had been far from consistent, but who was now a supporter of King David, largely through the influence of his wife, famous as "Black Agnes", a daughter of the great Randolph, Earl of Moray. From January to June, 1338, Black Agnes held Dunbar against English assaults by sea and land. Many romantic incidents have been related of these long months of siege: the stories of the Countess's use of a dust-cloth to repair the damage done by the English siege-machines to the battlements, and of her prophecy, made when the Earl of Salisbury brought a "sow" or shed fitted to protect soldiers in the manner of the Roman testudo,
"Beware, Montagow,
For farrow shall thy sow",
and fulfilled by dropping a huge stone on the machine and thus scattering its occupants, "the litter of English pigs"—these, and her "love-shafts", which, as Salisbury said, "pierce to the heart", are among the most wonderful of historical fairy tales. In the end the English had to raise the siege:
"Came I early, came I late,
I found Agnes at the gate",
they sang as the explanation of their failure.
The defence of Dunbar was followed by the surrender of Perth and the capture of the castles of Stirling and Edinburgh, and in June, 1341, David II returned to Scotland, from which Balliol had fled. David was now seventeen years of age, and he had a great opportunity. Scotland was again free, and was prepared to rally round its national sovereign and the son of the Bruce. The English foe was engaged in a great struggle with France, and difficulties had arisen between the English king and his Parliament. But the unworthy son of the great Robert proved only a source of weakness to his supporters. The only redeeming feature of his policy is that it was, at first, inspired by loyalty to his French protectors. In their interest he made, in the year of the Crécy campaign, an incursion into England, thus ending a truce made in 1343. After the usual preliminary ravaging, he reached Neville's Cross, near Durham, in the month of October. There he found a force prepared to meet him, led, as at Northallerton and at Mitton, by the clergy of the northern province. The battle was a repetition of Dupplin and Halidon Hill, and a rehearsal of Homildon and Flodden. Scots and English alike were drawn up in the usual three divisions; the left, centre, and right being led respectively, on the one side, by Robert the Steward, King David, and Randolph, and, on the other, by Rokeby, Archbishop Neville, and Henry Percy. The English archers were, as usual, spread out so as to command both the Scottish wings. They were met by no cavalry charge, and they soon threw the Scottish left into confusion, and prepared the way for an assault upon the centre. Randolph was killed; the king was captured, and for eleven years he remained a prisoner in England. Meanwhile Robert the Steward (still the heir to the throne, for David had no children) ruled in Scotland. There is reason for believing that, in 1352, David was allowed to go to Scotland to raise a ransom, and, two years later, an arrangement was actually made for his release. But Robert the Steward and David had always been on bad terms, and, after everything had been formally settled, the Scots decided to remain loyal to their French allies. Hostilities recommenced; in August, 1355, the Scots won a small victory at Nesbit in Berwickshire, and captured the town of Berwick. Early in the following year it was retaken by Edward III, who proclaimed himself the successor of Balliol, and mercilessly ravaged the Lowlands. So great was his destruction of churches and religious houses that the invasion is remembered as the "Burned Candlemas". Peace was made in 1357, and David's ransom was fixed at 100,000 marks. It was a huge sum; but in connection with the efforts made to raise it the burgesses acquired some influence in the government of the country.
David's residence in France and in England had entirely deprived him of sympathy with the national aspirations of his subjects. He loved the gay court of Edward III, and the Anglo-Norman chivalry had deeply affected him. He hated his destined successor, and he had been charmed by Edward's personality. Accordingly we find him, seven years after his return to Scotland, again making a journey to England. It is a striking fact that the son of the victor of Bannockburn should have gone to London to propose to sell the independence of Scotland to the grandson of Edward I. The difficulty of paying the yearly instalment of his ransom made a limit to his own extravagant expenditure, and he now offered, instead of money, an acknowledgment of either Edward himself or one of his sons as the heir to the Scottish throne. The result of this proposal was to change the policy of Edward. He abandoned the Balliol claim and the traditional Edwardian policy in Scotland, and accepted David's offer. David returned to Scotland and laid before his Parliament the less violent of the two schemes, the proposal that, in the event of his dying childless, Prince Lionel of England should succeed (1364).