asserted the maritime supremacy
of the country, and was entitled by parliament the "king of the sea;"
he neglected the navy in his later years. Little as the nation owed
him in other respects, his achievements by sea and land made the
English name respected.

It is said to have been chiefly through Mortimer's influence that, on
April 24, 1328, a peace was concluded between England and Scotland,
the chief provisions of which were that the Scots agreed to pay the
sum of L20,000, and that Edward agreed to recognize the independence
of the Scotch crown.

The treaty was very unpopular in England, and it is not surprising,
therefore, that, when Edward Baliol in 1332 made his attempt to mount
the Scotch throne, Edward III. gave him indirect assistance, and that
after Baliol's dethronement in 1333 an invasion of Scotland was
resolved on. On July 19 Edward defeated the Scots at the battle of
Halidon Hill. His army was in great danger, and was hemmed in by the
sea, the Tweed, the garrison of Berwick, and the Scottish host, which
far outnumbered the English. On the 20th he drew up his men in four
battles, placing his archers on the wings of each; all fought on foot,
and he himself in the van. The English archers began the fight; the
Scots fell in great numbers, and others fled, the rest charged up the
hill and engaged the enemy hand to hand. They were defeated with
tremendous loss; many nobles were slain, and it was commonly said in
England that the war was over, for that there was not a Scot left to
raise a force or lead it to battle. Edward ordered a general
thanksgiving for this victory. Receiving as the result of his victory
the submission of the principal Scotch nobles, he annexed the whole of
Scotland south of the Forth to his own crown, and allowed Baliol to
reign over the remainder as titular king. Soon after, Baliol was again
a fugitive, but was again aided by Edward to mount a nominal throne.

After a short period of peace Edward, in July, 1336, ravaged and
burned Scotland as far as Aberdeen, but growing complications with
France compelled him in the same year to return to England. Though he
professed to have a claim, through his mother, on the French throne
against Philip of Valois, that claim was left in abeyance until
several acts of aggression on the part of Philip brought about a
rupture between the two kings. The Count of Flanders, at Philip's
instigation, had broken off commercial relations with England; French