Henry de Beaumont - Edward de Balliol

Edward De Balliol

The peace of Northampton seemed to end forever the hopes of the disinherited. Two things changed this: the death of King Robert Bruce in 1329, followed in 1330 by a palace coup in England, which saw the overthrow of Roger Mortimer and the assumption of full powers by King Edward III. In Scotland, Robert's infant son, David II was king, bringing the inevitable tensions that follow from a royal minority. Edward, for the time being at least, maintained the peace with Scotland, but he was known to share the views of many of his countrymen that Northamption was a turpis pax-a shameful peace. In 1330 Edward III would make a formal request to the Scottish Crown to restore the lands of Beaumont's earldom to him, which was refused.

From near extinction, the cause of the disinherited was now revived; but it needed direction and focus. Above all, it needed a cause, something greater than frustrated ambition. By the early 1330s the cause had become Edward Balliol, in the judgement of some the rightful King of Scotland.

Edward Balliol is clearly an important figure; but it is difficult to decide if he was the author of his own ambitions or a lever for the designs of others. He took no part in the first war, and it is doubtful if he had any military experience before he came to Scotland in 1332. The driving force, as always, was Henry Beaumont, the lead conspirator of the disinherited. It was he who formed the 'party' of the disinherited in the period after the peace of Northampton: he who encouraged Balliol, with Edward III's approval, to leave his French estates and come to England. He was a seasoned campaigner, who had been present both at Bannockburn and the Battle of Boroughbridge, and learned much from both encounters. It is almost certain that he was the architect of Balliol's victory at the Battle of Dupplin Moor where he fought; and he is likely to have advised Edward on the tactics that brought him the first great military success of his career at the Battle of Halidon Hill, the exact foretaste of the later triumph at Crécy. Beaumont, moreover, provided much of the financial support that allowed the impecunious Balliol to descend on Scotland at the head of an army of freebooters. But his principal loyalty was to himself and then to Edward III; for, as time would show, Edward Balliol was a hook on which he hung the cloak of his ambitions.