THE RETURN OF THE KING (1341-1346)
David II’s return to Scotland after seven years of exile in France should have been a crowning moment for the Bruce Scots. And in the short term it likely was. The availability of a young active monarch to take the field against an ageing Edward Balliol and increasingly disinterested Edward III was surely the perfect means to end the war in the Bruce favour. But things were not so straightforward. For David’s absence was itself a difficulty. Raised in France by Scottish tutors who taught him how to be a king, and influenced by the court of King Philip VI, Scotland may not have been all that David expected when he returned. Moreover, without a king to lead them during his period of exile, the Bruce Scots had taken military matters into their own hands and formed war bands to tackle the Balliol/English threats. Men had become powerful on the back of military success and were not necessarily keen to hand back control over military affairs to a teenage monarch about whom they knew relatively little. David II would have to act carefully to ensure that he kept his warriors on side.
The king’s war
An obvious way to do this was to continue the previous policy of Andrew Murray, to take the war to England. Raids into the English north provided Bruce warriors with the opportunity to gain important experience of working together militarily, developing bonds and networks that were an important part of a militarised society. These efforts also took the war to Edward III’s kingdom. And, more practically, they offered the opportunity to amass wealth through the seizure of booty and plunder. So, one of David II’s first undertakings was to launch a series of raids across the Anglo-Scottish frontier in 1341-42. The first of these entered Northumberland around Hexhamshire and proceeded south in a raid in which the king may have fought under the banner of the earl of Moray as it was his first military encounter. This chivalric display of campaigning incognito did not end well, however, and the Bruce forces appear to have come off worst in an
