A Kingdom in the Shadows: The Second War of Scottish Independence, 1332–1333
The first war had ended in triumph—in banners raised over Bannockburn, in a treaty signed with trembling English hands, and in the idea that Scotland could be free. But in the uneasy aftermath of that first hard-fought independence, the nation proved fragile, its victories vulnerable to the familiar poisons of ambition and external intrigue. What followed, in 1332–1333, was the Second War of Scottish Independence—shorter than the first, but no less bloody, and marked by betrayal, invasion, and a devastating defeat at Halidon Hill. It was a reminder that kingdoms are not only won in war, but lost in peace.
The war’s origins lay in dynastic instability. Robert the Bruce, victor of Bannockburn and architect of Scottish independence, died in 1329, leaving the throne to his five-year-old son, David II. A child-king in a realm still healing from decades of war was a dangerous proposition. Into this vacuum stepped the disinherited: a faction of Anglo-Scottish nobles who had fought for England in the First War and lost their lands under Bruce’s harsh postwar settlement. Chief among them was Edward Balliol, son of the deposed John Balliol, whose own brief reign had been ended by Edward I more than thirty years earlier.
Edward III of England—young, calculating, and eager to reassert his kingdom’s prestige—provided covert support to Balliol and his exiled allies, known as the “Disinherited.” “The English king did not openly declare war,” writes Michael Brown, “but he armed the storm and pointed it north” (The Wars of Scotland, 2004, p. 222). Balliol, backed by a mercenary army of about 500 men, landed in Fife in July 1332. It was a small force, but it moved with purpose and ferocity.
The Scottish government, under the regency of Sir Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, was caught off guard. Randolph died unexpectedly just before the invasion, leaving a leadership void that would prove fatal. Balliol’s forces defeated the larger Scottish army at the Battle of Dupplin Moor on 11 August 1332. It was a slaughter. Scottish knights, charging in narrow terrain, were cut down by archers and infantry in a repetition of Falkirk and a foretaste of Crecy. “It was the beginning of a new kind of war,” notes G.W.S. Barrow, “where discipline and terrain triumphed over numbers and nobility” (Robert Bruce, 2005, p. 306).
With the path open, Balliol seized Perth and, in September 1332, was crowned King of Scots at Scone. But his throne sat on English bayonets and borrowed time. In a bold response, Bruce loyalists rallied under Sir Archibald Douglas, brother of the Black Douglas and Guardian of the realm. Just months after his coronation, Balliol was driven from Scotland by a sudden uprising and forced to flee back to England.
But Edward III had seen enough. The English king now moved from shadow to sunlit war. In 1333, he marched north with a full army and Balliol at his side, laying siege to Berwick-upon-Tweed, a vital border fortress and key to the east coast. The Scots, led again by Archibald Douglas, attempted to relieve the town, but Edward anticipated their move. On 19 July 1333, at Halidon Hill, just north of Berwick, the Scottish army advanced uphill into a trap.
The result was carnage. English longbowmen, positioned on high ground and protected by pits and palisades, decimated the approaching Scottish schiltrons. The flower of the Scottish nobility fell in waves. “The slaughter was so great,” writes Ranald Nicholson, “that Halidon rivaled Flodden in its waste of lives and promise” (Scotland: The Later Middle Ages, 1974, p. 129). Archibald Douglas was killed, along with five earls and hundreds of knights. Berwick surrendered days later.
Balliol was reinstalled as king by English force of arms and swore fealty to Edward III, ceding him control of southern Scotland, including Berwickshire, Dumfriesshire, and Roxburghshire. For a moment, it seemed that Scotland might once again be reduced to a vassal state. But even in defeat, the cause endured.
David II was smuggled to France, where he was received by Philip VI, and the Bruce loyalists refused to accept Balliol’s rule. Rebellions flared across the Highlands and Lowlands. By 1335, Balliol’s grip was slipping. The war shifted into a drawn-out campaign of attrition, and Edward III—now distracted by continental ambitions that would erupt into the Hundred Years’ War—withdrew from Scottish affairs. “The conquest proved more trouble than triumph,” writes Fiona Watson. “England had won the battle, but not the country” (Under the Hammer, 1998, p. 172).
By 1336, the war had faded into intermittent skirmishes. Balliol remained king in name only, retreating further into obscurity, while Scottish resistance regained strength under Andrew Murray and later under David II himself, who returned from exile in 1341 to resume his reign. Though the war formally drifted into the next phase of conflict, its decisive arc had already played out.
The Second War of Independence, then, was a war of kings without crowns, invasions without permanence, and victories that bled away in the mud. It exposed the fragility of Scottish sovereignty, but also its resilience. Like a fortress under siege, the kingdom had bent but not broken.
William Manchester once wrote that history’s turning points are not always signaled by the roar of cannon, but sometimes by “the slow, persistent refusal of a people to be ruled.” That was Scotland in 1333—not triumphant, but unyielding. The war was lost. The country was not.
References:
- Brown, Michael. The Wars of Scotland, 1214–1371. Edinburgh University Press, 2004.
- Barrow, G.W.S. Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland. Edinburgh University Press, 2005.
- Watson, Fiona. Under the Hammer: Edward I and Scotland, 1286–1307. Tuckwell Press, 1998.
- Nicholson, Ranald. Scotland: The Later Middle Ages. Oliver & Boyd, 1974.
- Prestwich, Michael. Edward III. Yale University Press, 1996.