ABSTRACT
On a stormy March night in 1286, Alexander III King of Scots was killed when he fell from his horse, as he rode along the Fife shore to be with his young queen, Yolande, at Kinghorn. The accident set off a course of events which led to war between England and Scotland – a war which continued, with some intermissions, into Edward III’s reign. To examine this conflict it is necessary to move back from the point of time reached in the last chapter to the heyday of Edward I’s reign, and to take the story on through the disasters of his son’s reign to the resurgence of English arms under Edward III. Although there were some notable victories, this war was to be far less successful than Edward I’s against the Welsh, or than the struggle against the French between 1337 and 1360. It was nevertheless of fundamental importance. The problem of Scotland dogged Edward I in his later years, and constantly overshadowed the troubled politics of his son’s reign. The English learned much from the war, and it was as a result of experience in fighting in the north that their army was transformed by Edward III’s reign into the most formidable fighting machine in Europe.
