Wallace was executed in Aug. 1305. Six months later, Robert Bruce and John ("the Red") Comyn, both of them ex-guardians of Scotland, met secretly in the Greyfriars church at Dumfries. Comyn was a nephew of Balliol and was re garded as the representative of the Balliol claims. A meeting of the only two possible candidates for the Scottish throne must have been held for the purpose of adjusting their claims with a view to further resistance. The result of the conference was to make resistance inevitable and immediate. There was a quarrel, and Bruce stabbed Comyn ; his followers despatched the wounded man. It was impossible for Bruce to conceal his real aims from Edward, and, though he had made no preparations for resistance, he was crowned in March 1306 at Scone. His chances of success seemed slight, for the kindred and friends of the great families of Balliol and Comyn were violently hostile to him; and the clergy, who had hitherto supported the cause of independence, were likely to be alienated by a crime which combined murder with sacrilege. A defeat at Methven, near Perth, in June, might well have put an end to the rising, and Bruce's failure in the battlefield was fol lowed by other misfortunes. He spent the winter of 1306—o7 as a fugitive—his adventures are described in Barbour's Bruce and in Sir Walter Scott's Lord of the Isles and Tales of a Grandfather. But Bruce was to prove himself a great national leader, the de termination of the Scots to regain their independence had been strengthened by the death of Wallace, and even the clergy did not desert the new monarch in spite of a papal excommunication. In the spring, Bruce appeared on his own lands in Ayrshire, and in May he won a victory at Loudoun Hill in the same county. Then an event happened which changed the whole situation. Ed ward I. had spent the winter at Lanercost Abbey in the north of England, and had moved to Carlisle, where, in March, he sen tenced to death two of Bruce's brothers who had fallen into his hands. On hearing the news of Loudoun Hill he resolved to lead his army to Scotland in person, but he died at Burgh-on-Sands on July 7, and his successor abandoned the campaign.
Edward II. probably had adequate reasons for returning to London, but he missed a great opportunity in Scotland. One of his father's great difficulties had been that Scot tish barons and bishops were ready to take, and just as ready to break, oaths of allegiance to the sovereign of England. He could not rely upon the unfailing support of any Scottish family or faction. The murder of Comyn had accomplished what all the first Edward's oaths had failed to achieve—the creation of an English party in Scotland which could be trusted unswervingly to maintain English interests. There was an irreconcilable blood feud between King Robert and the friends and adherents of the murdered Comyn. Edward II. left this party without support and without any definite plan of campaign, and between 1307 and 1310 Bruce crushed its members individually. A futile and half-hearted invasion led by Edward in person in 1310 did nothing to retrieve the balance, and for the next four years, Bruce, with the help of his brother Edward, and of the "Black" Douglas, not only ex pelled English garrisons from Scottish castles but was able to inflict great damage by raids upon the northern counties of England. At last, in 1314, Edward II. made a serious effort to
recover his father's conquest and suffered at Bannockburn (June 24) the greatest disaster which an English army had ever sus tained. The fight was not of Bruce's seeking; he had avoided a general action in 1310 in accordance with the usual Scottish policy of guerrilla warfare. A pitched battle was too great a risk in view of the comparative resources of the two countries, and it was an imprudent challenge accepted by Edward Bruce from the English governor of Stirling Castle in the summer of 1313 that led to what proved to be the only successful battle on a great scale ever won by the Scots over the English. But Bannockburn was won, and it was sufficient for the vindication of Scottish independence. Edward II. stubbornly declined to admit the accomplished fact, and for many years Bruce carried terror into the northern coun ties, and he also dealt a serious blow to English dominion in Ire land. It was not till after the deposition and murder of Edward II. that the regents for his son, Edward III., agreed to the Treaty of Northampton (1328), by which England acknowledged the independence of the Kingdom of Scotland.
In the following year, King Robert died, leaving as his heir a son, David II. (1329-71), who, though only a child of five, had already been married, in accordance with a provision of the Treaty of Northampton, to Joanna, a daughter of Edward II. In 133o, Edward III. threw off the yoke of his mother and her paramour, Mortimer, who had deposed his father, and a new phase of the War of Independence began. It was then that the most disastrous effects of the murder of Comyn began to operate. Bruce had vanquished the Scottish opponents whose bitter enmity that deed had provoked, but they had reso lutely refused to acknowledge his sovereignty or, in the mediaeval phrase, to "come into his peace." Their estates had been forfeited and they had taken refuge in England. Thus, when England had again a strong king and Scotland a weak one, there was at the English court a body of "Disinherited Knights," as they were called, who urged the young Edward to wipe out the shame of Bannockburn, deeply felt by his people, and to reconquer Scotland. The Treaty of Northampton, confirmed by an English Parliament, stood in the way, but the conditions of the treaty had not been fully carried out by the Scots. It provided for the restoration of the estates of a few of the disinherited, and the Scottish regent, Randolph, earl of Moray, a nephew of King Robert, felt that it was not safe to take this step while the exiles were in favour at the English court. It was an ominous circum stance that the new English king had invited from France Edward Balliol, the heir of John Balliol, who was known to be contem plating an attempt to regain his father's vassal throne. In the summer of 1332, while England and Scotland were officially at peace, Edward III. permitted Balliol to lead an army of the dis inherited for the recovery of Scotland. The earl of Mar, who had just succeeded to the regency on Randolph's death, was defeated by Balliol at Dupplin Moor (Aug. 12, 1332), and, in September, Balliol was crowned at Scone as Edward I. of Scotland. The English king then openly espoused Balliol's cause and, abandoning his grandfather's final policy of complete annexation, reverted to the earlier project of a vassal kingdom.