The actual declaration of war against France at the close of 1337 was the knell of Balliol's greatness; he found himself without an adherent and withdrew two years later to the court of Edward, while David returned to his kingdom in 1342 and won back the chief fastnesses of the Lowlands.

From that moment the freedom of Scotland was secured.

From a war of conquest and patriotic resistance the struggle died into a petty strife between two angry neighbours, which became a mere episode in the larger contest which it had stirred between England and France.
[Sidenote: The Hundred Years War] Whether in its national or in its European bearings it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the contest which was now to open between these two nations.

To England it brought a social, a religious, and in the end a political revolution.

The Peasant Revolt, Lollardry, and the New Monarchy were direct issues of the Hundred Years War.