Bruce was now in a position to turn his main energies against the strongholds still in English occupation.

Towards the end of March 1312 he was preparing to besiege Berwick with an unusually large force. But the operations are not known; and, in any case, they were soon postponed. On April 26, he held a parliament at Ayr, and carefully settled the succession to the throne.

The dissensions between Edward and his barons appear to have induced Bruce to carry the war into the enemy's territory. While the incensed barons were hunting down Gaveston, he raided the March again, took tribute, burned Norham, and carried off prisoners and booty. Again, in the end of June, after Gaveston was beheaded, Bruce made another foray into the episcopate of Durham. He burnt Hexham, and dealt so severely with the Priory, that even in 1320, it is said, the canons were unable to return, while their collectors were still 'wandering about in the country in 1326, with the archbishop's brief, in quest of funds for the canons and their church.' It may have been on this occasion that Bruce sent Douglas to pillage the region of Hartlepool. It is, no doubt, in reference to a subsequent raid, that the Lanercost chronicler tells how a detachment entered Durham on market day, burned most of the town, and slew all that resisted, but did not touch the castle or the abbey. The episcopate compounded for peace till next midsummer at £2000, the Scots bargaining for free passage 'whenever they wanted to ride further into England!' The Palatinate Register records the date as August 16. The Northumbrians, too, paid down £2000; Westmorland, Coupland, and Cumberland also paid ransom—money in part, and for the rest hostages, 'sons of the greater lords of the country.' And meantime Edward was squabbling with his barons. It was enough to make his martial father rise from his grave.

At last, on December 6, the Lanercost chronicle relates, Bruce suddenly pounced upon Berwick. His men had placed two ladders, and 'he would soon have had the castle, as is believed,' had the garrison not been warned by the barking of a dog. The ladders, says the chronicler, 'were of a remarkable make, as I myself, who write this, witnessed with my own eyes.' He describes ladders of ropes, with wooden steps, and iron hooks to grip the wall top. The alarm being raised, Bruce retired, leaving the two ladders for the monk's inspection. 'So a dog on that occasion saved the town, as once geese by their cackling saved Rome.'

Bruce turned north to Perth. According to the Lanercost chronicle, he took the town by surprise in the night of January 10 (Fordun says January 8), 1312–13. The governor, Sir William Oliphant—probably this is the capture of Perth antedated by Barbour—'was bound and sent to the islands afar'; but, if so, he did not stay long there, for he was in England within two months, and on October 21, he obtained a safe-conduct to return to Scotland. The chronicler says that Bruce slew the better Scots burgesses, but permitted the English to go free; while Fordun records that he put 'the disloyal people, Scots and English alike,' to the sword. 'In his clemency,' adds Fordun, 'he spared the rabble, and granted forgiveness to such as asked it; but he destroyed the walls and dykes, and consumed everything else with fire.'

Bruce next swept down upon Dumfries. Here his old enemy, Sir Dougal MacDowall, constable of the castle, had experienced much difficulty all through summer and autumn in obtaining adequate supplies. He gave up the castle to Bruce on February 7, the short siege probably indicating that he was starved into surrender. It is likely, as Mr Bain surmises, that Buittle, Dalswinton, Lochmaben, and Carlaverock were all recovered about the same time.

The Scots appear to have derived considerable supplies from Flanders. On February 15, 1312–13, Edward remonstrated with the Count of Flanders, begging him to restrain his subjects from all intercourse with Scotsmen. The Count seized the occasion to demand compensation for losses and injuries inflicted on his subjects by Englishmen. An English commission, much to the disgust of the Flemish envoys, rejected the claims; and presently Flemish seamen plundered English vessels, the chief depredator being the ingenious John Crab, whom we shall meet again. On May 1, 1313, Edward invited the Count to send his aggrieved subjects back to London; but 'now,' he added, 'we hear that thirteen ships of your power, laden with arms and victuals, quite lately crossed from the port of Swyn to Scotland—whereat we very much marvel.' The Flemish quarrel went on; but on May 17, at the instance of the French king, Edward appointed four commissioners 'to negotiate a truce or sufferance with the Scots.'

Within a week, however, as Edward was on the point of embarking for France to confer with Philip about Gascony, he learned from a special messenger from the lieges of Cumberland that the Scots were again upon them. He could only tell them to do their best, and he would hasten back to take order for their safety. On June 6, Bishop Kellawe of Durham testifies to the forlorn state of the nuns of Halistan on the March; there are hostile incursions daily, goods and cattle are reived, and the very nuns are insulted and persecuted by the robbers, and driven from their homes suffering miserably. Such are examples of the state of affairs in the mind of the Lanercost chronicler when he records that 'the people of Northumberland, Westmorland, and Cumberland, and other men of the Marches, neither having nor hoping from their King defence or aid, he being then in the remote parts of England and not appearing to trouble himself about them, offered no moderate amount—nay, a very large amount—of money to Robert for truce till September 29, 1314.' Bruce was striking hard and persistently, and Edward was giving way all along the line of war.

On his return, indeed, Edward at once took measures of retaliation. As early as April 2, he had answered applications from Northumberland for aid by a promise of relief before midsummer—a promise that remained unfulfilled. On July 6, he demanded a subsidy from the bishops, and on August 13 he made a like appeal to the abbots and convents. In warlike mood, in the end of July, he had ordered something like a press-gang muster of boats at the ports from the Wash round to Plymouth. It was but a spasmodic effort of weakness. About the beginning of October, Sir Ralph Fitz William reported that 'they are grievously menaced with treason at Berwick, but, if the garrison are loyal, they will defend it against the King of France and the King of Scotland for a while till succour reaches them.' In the end of next month, the Bishop of St Andrews proceeded to France in the interest of Edward, no doubt with the object of detaching Philip from co-operation with Bruce. It was a fatuous choice of an envoy.

The wretched inefficiency of Edward had by this time rendered the position of his adherents in Scotland all but insupportable. In November they despatched the Earl of March and Sir Adam de Gordon to lay their grievances before him. Their petition recounts their heavy losses at the hands of the enemy during the past three years; their costly purchase of truce; and especially their intolerable sufferings from the lawless outrages committed upon them by the garrisons of Berwick and Roxburgh, who are alleged to have plundered, killed, and held them to ransom at will, as if they had been enemies. Here is a substantial repetition of the memorandum of 1307–10. Sir Adam de Gordon could tell how he had himself been arrested by the constable of Roxburgh Castle and required to find security for his good behaviour. The King, replying on November 28, could only give them the cold comfort of an assurance of his intention to march to their relief at next midsummer. It is quite natural that such slackness of the central authority should have given head to such marauding scoundrels on the Border as Sir Gilbert de Middleton and Thomas de Pencaitland. That notorious knight of the road, Sir Gilbert, will cross our path again.

It could not have been earlier than autumn 1313 that Bruce recovered the Peel of Linlithgow, which was held by Sir Archibald de Livingstone, under the orders of Sir Peter Lubaud, warden and sheriff of Edinburgh. Barbour makes it harvest time. The peel garrison had cut their hay, and engaged William Bunnock, a neighbouring farmer, who hated them patriotically, to 'lead' it for them. Bunnock conceived the notion of elevating the familiar harvesting process to an operation of war, and arranged the strategic details with his friends. He planted an ambush in the early morning, and let the hay lie till the peel men had gone out to cut their crop. Loading the hay, with eight men hid in it, he set a hardy yeoman, with a hatchet under his belt, to drive the waggon, himself walking idly beside. When the waggon was half-way through the gate, Bunnock shouted the signal, 'Thief! Call all! Call all!' The driver instantly severed the traces, stopping the waggon; Bunnock slew the porter; the eight men leapt down from the midst of the hay, and the ambush swarmed up. They slew the men they found in garrison, and pursued those that were in the fields towards Edinburgh and Stirling, killing some in their flight. For this exploit Bruce rewarded Bunnock worthily. The peel he at once demolished. The story of Bunnock rests on the sole authority of Barbour.

The next castle to fall was Roxburgh. Douglas had been keeping the Forest, and harassing Roxburgh and Jedburgh castles. Resolving to win Roxburgh, he got a handy man, Simon of the Leadhouse, to make him ladders of hempen ropes, with strong wooden steps and iron hooks, after the Berwick pattern. Then gathering some sixty men, he approached the castle on Fastern's Even (Shrove Tuesday), February 27, 1313–14, and waited till dark. The party left their horses, put black frocks over their armour, and crept forward on all fours like cattle. The deception succeeded; Barbour says they overheard the garrison jesting at the expense of the neighbouring farmer, who, they imagined, had left his cattle at large to be carried off by the Douglas. The click of a hook on the wall attracted a sentinel, but Simon, who had mounted first, stabbed the man dead, and the party quickly scaled the wall. The garrison were making merry in the hall, when the Scots burst in upon them with the Douglas war-cry. A sharp conflict ensued. At length Sir William de Fiennes, the constable, a valorous Gascon, retreated to the great tower. With daylight, the Scots plied the tower with arrows, and eventually wounded Sir William so badly in the face that he yielded, on terms that he and his men should pass safe to England. Douglas conducted them over the Border, and Sir William soon afterwards died of his wound. Bruce sent his brother Sir Edward to demolish the castle. Sir Edward, says Barbour, secured all Teviotdale except Jedburgh and other places near the English border. On main points Barbour is corroborated by Sir Thomas Gray and the Lanercost chronicler.

The news of the capture of Roxburgh stimulated the rivalry of Randolph, who was besieging Sir Peter Lubaud in Edinburgh Castle. Hopeless of taking the place by assault, Randolph cast about for some likely stratagem, when William Francis (or William the Frenchman), one of his men, suggested a plan of extreme boldness. Francis, according to Barbour, stated that he had at one time lived in the castle, and, having a sweetheart in the town, had been accustomed to climb the sheer rock in the darkest nights. All that was needed was good nerve, and a twelve-foot ladder for the wall on the top. So, on a dark night—Fordun gives March 14, 1313–14—Randolph, with thirty picked men, essayed the adventurous ascent. About half way up they stopped to rest. Here their nerves were dramatically tested. One of the watch overhead threw down a stone, exclaiming 'Away! I see you well.' It was a mere joke, the sentry saw nothing; and the stone passed harmlessly over them. The watchmen passed on without suspicion, and Randolph with his men hastened up the steeper and steeper crag to the foot of the wall. Instantly the ladder was fixed, Francis mounting first, then Sir Andrew Gray, and Randolph himself third. Before all the party got over the watch was alarmed, the cry of 'Treason! Treason!' resounded through the castle, and a desperate struggle ensued. Randolph himself was very sorely bested, but he succeeded in killing the commandant; whereupon the garrison gave in. The Lanercost chronicler states that a strong assault was made on the south gate—the only point reasonably open to assault—where the garrison offered a vigorous resistance; and that the party mounting the rock on the north side under cover of this front attack, having surprised and overcome the defenders, opened the gate to their comrades. Sir Peter Lubaud, the warden, says Barbour, had been deposed from the command of the garrison on account of some suspicious intercourse with the enemy, and was found by Randolph in prison in fetters. He became Bruce's man, but soon afterwards he fell under suspicion of treason, and, by Bruce's order, was drawn and hanged (Gray)—or at any rate put in prison, where he died miserably (John of Tynmouth). The Lanercost writer states that the victors 'slew the English,' probably meaning the garrison; but the extant rolls show that there were many Scotsmen in the garrison, 'two of them,' as Mr Bain remarks, even 'bearing the surname of Douglas.' Bruce demolished the castle.

Barbour states that Sir Edward Bruce, having won all Galloway and Nithsdale, and taken Rutherglen Peel and Dundee Castle, laid siege to Stirling Castle from Lent to midsummer, 1313; and that then Sir Philip de Mowbray, the constable, agreed to yield the castle, provided it were not relieved by midsummer 1314. The most recklessly chivalrous terms are indeed consonant with Sir Edward's character. But if, as Barbour and the Monk of Malmesbury agree, Mowbray was influenced by a threatened failure of provisions, the period must have been much less. He in Stirling would hardly be in any better case for supplies than was MacDowall in Dumfries. Immediately on investment of the castle, he would begin to feel the pinch; and the fall of Edinburgh would at once intimate the hopelessness of his position. But, further, we have seen Sir Edward demolishing Roxburgh Castle in early March, and it does not seem likely that he would have left a substitute to look after Stirling. Besides, the Lanercost chronicler can hardly be mistaken when he says that Sir Edward entered England on April 17, taking up his headquarters at the Bishop's manor house at Rose, and sending his army as far as Englewood Forest, south and west, for three days to burn and plunder—because the tribute had not been duly paid. Once more, the Monk of Malmesbury represents that it was after the fall of the other castles that Mowbray carried to Edward the news of his agreement for surrender. On the whole, it may be seriously doubted whether the respite extended beyond a couple of months, or even six weeks. It is not, apparently, till May 27, that Mowbray's conditional agreement for surrender is mentioned in any existing official document.

Besides Stirling, the only fortresses of any importance that now remained in the hands of the English were Berwick, Jedburgh, and Bothwell. But the immediate interest centres in the fateful attempt to relieve the castle of Stirling.