At twenty-three Edward was almost as fine a man physically as his father, Edward I; but his lack of moral fibre made him as great a menace to the community idle, vain, petty and cowardly, his boon companions were buffoons and ostlers. The duties of kingship wearied him - but he dearly loved a game of pitch and toss. He had not the spirit to continue his father's campaign against the Scots, and Robert Bruce, their King and champion, steadily strengthened his position.

PIERS GAVESTON Edward's weakness of character led him to a degrading dependence on a conceited and flashy young Gascon knight , Piers Gaveston .He loaded this odious favourite with honours and gave him the first place in his councils. The greed and insolence of "good brother Piers," as Edward fondly called him, and the errors of the unkingly King's feckless rule, stung the English nobility to violent action. Twice was Gaveston sent packing - only to return each time to his doting Edward - and the King was muzzled. He was compelled to accept a scheme for the complete fettering of the powers of government he had so wantonly abused. As for brother Piers, he sneaked back once too often. He was taken and foully murdered. BANNOCKBURN Meantime, Bruce was making hay while the sun shone. In 1314, Stirling Castle, the last great Scottish stronghold remaining in English hands, stood in dire peril. Even Edward's feeble spirit was roused by the threat. He succeeded in mustering a mighty army and marched north. On Midsummer Day, the rival forces, the English by far superior in numbers, faced each other on the famous field of Bannockburn, some two miles south of Stirling. Famous, in truth, it was for the Scots, but infamous beyond measure for the English. Weary from forced marches and lack of sleep, ill-fed and ill-led, they had to face a body of men passionately determined to win their country's freedom or die on the spot and led by a masterly and inspiring captain. Their numbers were of no avail. They were checked, overborne, then completely routed. The inglorious Edward himself bolted from the fray and never stopped till he reached Dunbar, sixty miles off.

SCOTLAND GAINS INDEPENDENCE Bannockburn clinched the question of Scotland's independence and crowned the movement towards the fusion of her assorted races into a single nation. The long and doubtful struggle begun by Edward I had drawn them together. Now the resounding victory over his son tightened the bonds as never before. The first Edward's attempt to unite the two realms under his own rule had returned like a boomerang on his country. For centuries to come Scotland was to stand, with hackles raised, the sworn foe of England, the friend of England's foes. The shame of Bannockburn was followed by further evils, both at home and abroad. The English authority in Ireland was reduced to a shadow beyond the Pale, the area around Dundalk, Dublin and Wicklow. Gascony was all but lost. The King took to himself two new favourites, the Despensers, father and son. Then he bit through his muzzle and bit the barons - hard. Meantime his afflicted people continued to groan under the extremes of misrule and oppression, to which fate unkindly added the horrors of famine and pestilence. THE KING ABDICATES At last a hope of relief came from an unexpected quarter. Edward and his favourites had humiliated and antagonised the young King's French wife Isabella, a lady of uncomfortably strong character and violent passions. In 1326 the queen was in the Netherlands. With her were her thirteen-year-old son Edward and a band of English exiles which included her intimate associate Roger Mortimer, a baron of the Welsh marches. The party now crossed over to England with the avowed aim of evicting the detested Despensers. The country received the queen with open arms. Edward and the Despensers took to their heels and fled to the West with Isabella after them. Her followers captured the old Despenser and promptly hanged him. They hunted down his son and sent him the way of his sire. Edward, too, they took and held in captivity. But they did not stay their hands there. Next year, after Parliament had deposed him in favour of his son, they forced the King, in tears, to abdicate. And then - poor, shiftless wight -they murdered him