Edward Balliol is clearly an important figure; but it is difficult to decide if he was the author of his own ambitions or a lever for the designs of others. He took no part in the first war, and it is doubtful if he had any military experience before he came to Scotland in 1332. The driving force, as always, was Henry Beaumont, the lead conspirator of the disinherited. It was he who formed the 'party' of the disinherited in the period after the peace of Northampton: he who encouraged Balliol, with Edward III's approval, to leave his French estates and come to England. He was a seasoned campaigner, who had been present both at Bannockburn and the Battle of Boroughbridge, and learned much from both encounters. It is almost certain that he was the architect of Balliol's victory at the Battle of Dupplin Moor where he fought; and he is likely to have advised Edward on the tactics that brought him the first great military success of his career at the Battle of Halidon Hill, the exact foretaste of the later triumph at Crécy. Beaumont, moreover, provided much of the financial support that allowed the impecunious Balliol to descend on Scotland at the head of an army of freebooters. But his principal loyalty was to himself and then to Edward III; for, as time would show, Edward Balliol was a hook on which he hung the cloak of his ambitions.