David II.

David II., only son of King Robert Bruce, was born at Dunfermline, 5th March 1324, and was married in 1328 to Edward II.'s daughter, Joanna. In June 1329 he succeeded his father, and in November 1331 was crowned, with his child-queen, at Scone. In 1334 the success of Edward Baliol (q.v.), and Edward III.'s victory at Halidon Hill, forced David's guardians to send him and his consort to France, whence by the triumph of the national party he was permitted to return in 1341. Five years later, in fulfilment of his alliance with France, he invaded England, but at the battle of Neville's Cross, near Durham, was utterly routed by the Archbishop of York, 17th October 1346. For eleven years he remained a prisoner, in or near London, and at Odiham, in Hampshire; at length, in 1357, he was released on promise of a heavy ransom (100,000 marks), whose non-payment involved him in shameful dependence on England. In 1363 he actually proposed to his parliament that Edward III.'s second son should succeed him on the Scottish throne; and though the proposal was curtly rejected, the intrigue between the two kings was ended only by David's death at Edinburgh Castle, 22d February 1371. He was not forty-seven years old, yet his reign had lasted more than forty-one years—a reign as inglorious as it was long, but still of great moment to Scotland, since, 'from a war of conquest and patriotic resistance, the struggle had died into a petty strife between two angry nations, a mere episode in the larger contest which it had stirred between England and France.' Queen Joanna dying in 1362, David next year had married Margaret Logie, a comely widow, whom he divorced in 1369. By neither marriage had he any issue, so was succeeded by his sister's son, Robert II.