st. Not only had Balliol to
contend against the implacable hostility of the Scottish patriots; the
disinherited split up into rival factions after their triumph, and
their divisions played the game of the partisans of the Bruces. The
Earls of Athol and Buchan quarrelled with Balliol. Buchan, besieged by
the partisans of David Bruce in a remote castle, was forced to
surrender and quit Scotland for good. Athol was distinguished by the
violence and suddenness of his tergiversations. After deserting Balliol
for the patriots, he once more declared for the two Edwards, and
persuaded many of the Scottish magnates to submit themselves to them.
So long as the English king remained in Scotland, Athol was safe. On
Edward's retirement to his kingdom in November, 1335, the nationalist
leaders took the earl prisoner and put him to death. The war dragged on
from year to year, with startling vicissitudes of fortune, but at no
time was Balliol really established on the Scottish throne, and at no
time did Edward III. really govern all the ceded districts.

Scottish business detained the English king and court mainly in the
north. Edward was in Scotland for most of the winter of 1334-5, keeping
his Christmas court at Roxburgh. In the summer of 1335 he led an army
into Scotland and penetrated as far as Perth. Again in 1336, he marched
from Perth along the east coast, as far as Elgin and Inverness. The
Scots refused to give him battle, and their tactics of evasion and
guerilla warfare soon exhausted his resources and demoralised his
armies. This was Edward's last personal intervention in the business.
He had long been irritated by the persistent interference of the French
king in Scottish affairs, and his anger was not lessened by his hard
plight forcing him, on more than one occasion, to grant short truces to
the Scottish insurgents at Philip's intervention. His relations with
France were becoming so strained that he preferred to spend 1337 in the
south and entrust Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, with the conduct
of the fruitless campaign of that year. Early in 1338, Edward made his
way once more to Berwick, but his intention of invading Scotland was
suddenly abandoned on the news of a threatened French expedition to
England recalling him to the south. This was the decisive moment of the
long struggle. Henceforth the English king could only devote a small
share of his resources to an undertaking which he had not been able to
compass whe