The Price of the King’s Peace

Victory at Bannockburn has secured Robert Bruce’s authority, but it has not ended the Wars of Scottish Independence. England still refuses to recognise him as a lawful sovereign, the papacy maintains its pressure on the excommunicated king, and large parts of the border remain exposed to renewed attack. Bruce therefore carries the war into northern England while his brother Edward pursues the far more dangerous ambition of establishing a Bruce kingship in Ireland. James Douglas and Thomas Randolph become the principal captains of a campaign fought as much through negotiation and endurance as through battle.

The king’s public successes are accompanied by private grief, declining health and the burden of the killing of John Comyn. Elizabeth de Burgh returns after years of English imprisonment, but the restored royal household cannot escape bereavement or uncertainty over the succession. As the Declaration of Arbroath asserts Scotland’s right to freedom and English politics begin to change, Bruce presses for the settlement that Bannockburn failed to provide. The final volume portrays the price of kingship as the long, exhausting struggle to convert military survival into an accepted and lasting peace.