SIR
WILLIAM
WALLACE

[FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES]

The following Volumes are now ready—

• THOMAS CARLYLE. By Hector C. Macpherson.
  
• ALLAN RAMSAY. By Oliphant Smeaton.
  
• HUGH MILLER. By W. Keith Leask.
  
• JOHN KNOX. By A. Taylor Innes.
  
• ROBERT BURNS. By Gabriel Setoun.
  
• THE BALLADISTS. By John Geddie.
  
• RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor Herkless.
  
• SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By Eve Blantyre Simpson.
  
• THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. Garden Blaikie.
  
• JAMES BOSWELL. By W. Keith Leask.
  
• TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By Oliphant Smeaton.
  
• FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. Omond.
  
• THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By Sir George Douglas.
  
• NORMAN MACLEOD. By John Wellwood.
  
• SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Professor Saintsbury.
  
• ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A. B. Grosart.
  
• MUNGO PARK. By T. Banks Maclachlan.
  
• DAVID HUME. By Professor Calderwood.
  
• WILLIAM DUNBAR. By Oliphant Smeaton.
  
• SIR WILLIAM WALLACE. By Professor Murison.
  

SIR
WILLIAM
WALLACE

BY
A. F.
MURISON

FAMOUS
SCOTS
SERIES

PUBLISHED BY
CHARLES
SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK

TO
THE MEMORY OF
THE COMRADES AND HELPERS
OF
SIR WILLIAM WALLACE
MEN OR WOMEN
DISTINGUISHED OBSCURE OR NAMELESS

Quod de re publica non desperassent

'My son, I tell thee soothfastlie,
No gift is like to Libertie;
Then never live in slaverie.'

'For Freedom's battle, once begun,
Bequeath'd by bleeding Sire to Son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won.'

[PREFACE]

'The ignorance of some otherwise well-informed persons respecting the claims of Wallace as a national patriot,' wrote Dr. Charles Rogers, 'is deplorable.'

The documentary authorities are, indeed, fragmentary, and exceptionally perplexing. Some are clearly trustworthy; many are conflicting, dissimulatory, falsified, false, biassed in all degrees, and full of inference and hearsay set forth in the guise of indubitable fact. The researches of English historians—even when they happen to be Scotsmen—have not yet rendered further investigation superfluous.

The fact is, that a large critical undertaking must form the basis of any adequate account of Wallace. In a brief narrative the writer must resign himself to the simple if somewhat perilous course of telling his story as it has shaped itself in his mind during perusal of the available authorities, with but occasional and slight indications of the shaping process.

The noble poem of Blind Harry, thanks largely to the ingenium perfervidum of the minstrel himself, has been much—we may say wholly—discredited as history. Harry has been very cavalierly dealt with, however; it is more by a grin than otherwise that he has been vanquished. Stevenson's tentative protest is here emphasised. For the present sketch, however, Harry is used rather by way of illustration than as a source of facts. He is cited without any claim to credence, except on grounds definitely specified. But such reservation is provisional, and conditioned by such rational criticism as may one day yet be applied. The citations in the text have been conservatively modernised. All students of Harry's poem owe their most grateful acknowledgments to Dr. James Moir and the Scottish Text Society.

One is reluctant to believe that there are no more references to Wallace still lying dormant in the muniment rooms of Scottish families. One is no less reluctant to suppose that any patriotic Scot would leave a solitary corner of his muniments unsearched for every possible glint of light upon the great man that has stood forth for six centuries, and will in all probability stand forth for ever, as incomparably the most heroic and most fateful figure in the history of Scotland—a Hero and a Patriot second to none in the recorded history of the nations.

[CONTENTS]

SIR WILLIAM WALLACE

[CHAPTER I]
The English Aggression

'Quhen Alysandyr oure Kyng wes dede,
That Scotland led in luẅe and lé,
Away wes sons of ale and brede,
Off wyne and wax, off gamyn and glé:

'Oure gold wes changyd in to lede.
Cryst, borne in to Vyrgynyté,
Succoure Scotland and remede,
That stad [is in] perplexyté.'

Wyntoun, VII. fin.

A most fateful date in the history of Scotland was the 19th of March 1285–86. In the dusk of that memorable day, King Alexander III., riding along the coast of Fife, near Kinghorn, was thrown over a precipice and killed. He was only in the forty-fifth year of his age, though in the thirty-seventh year of his reign. If we take our stand at Kinghorn on the next melancholy morning, and gaze backwards and forwards on the history of the country, we shall witness the most impressive contrast of peace and war that is presented in the annals of Scotland, or perhaps of any civilised nation in the world. This awful contrast forms a most essential element in determining the judgment of history on the policy of the Scots and of the English kings. At the death of Alexander, Scotland was a most prosperous country, steadily advancing in the arts of peaceful life—'more civilised and more prosperous,' says Innes, with the common assent of historians, 'than at any period of her existence, down to the time when she ceased to be a separate kingdom in 1707.' The policy of Edward I., however motived, was the prime cause of this lamentable subversion of the tranquillity of a hundred years.

THE PROJECT OF MARRIAGE

The shadows of coming trouble had fallen upon Scotland before the death of Alexander III. The family of the King had been swept away by death. His first queen, Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry III. and sister of Edward I. of England, had died in 1275. His younger son, David, had died in 1280. His elder son, Alexander, who married Margaret, daughter of Guy, Count of Flanders, in 1282, had died without issue early in 1283–84. His only daughter, who married Eric II., King of Norway, in 1281, had also died early in 1283–84, leaving a daughter. Alexander was little over forty. Still there is no assurance of length of days; and if he should die there would be a minority, probably a disputed succession, possibly an active revival of the English claim to over-lordship. In these circumstances, Alexander at once proceeded to take such precautions as he could. He summoned a Parliament at Scone on February 5, 1283–84, and obtained from his nobles their solemn acknowledgment of Margaret, Princess of Norway, as heiress of Scotland, failing issue of himself and of his late son. Towards the end of next year, he also married a second wife, Joleta (or Iolande), daughter of the Count de Dreux; but she bore him no child. Alexander must have often and anxiously reflected upon the likelihood of a recurrence of such baronial rivalries as had proved a grave danger to the country during his own minority. On his tragic death on March 19, 1285–86, the hopes of the nation were left to rest upon the fragile Maid of Norway.

For a short period the affairs of the kingdom maintained a placid course. On April 11, 1286, the magnates assembled at Scone, and selected six of their number to act as a Council of Regency, with the official designation of 'the Guardians of the Kingdom of Scotland appointed by the common advice.' The Bishop of St. Andrews and the Earls of Fife and Buchan were to administer the districts north of the Forth; the Bishop of Glasgow, Comyn of Badenoch, and James the Steward of Scotland, were to rule the lands south of the Forth. No question was raised as to the succession of the little princess, and ostensibly there was every disposition on the part of the barons to fulfil the solemn pledges they had made to her grandfather two years before. It may, however, be open to doubt whether intrigue had not commenced to operate by the time that Alexander III. was laid to rest at Dunfermline.

For one thing, there is extant a letter of credence, dated Dunfermline, March 29, 1286, addressed to King Edward by the Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, 'in their own name, and in the name of the clergy, earls, barons, and all others of the realm of Scotland, who had been present at the burial of the lord Alexander of good memory, the late illustrious King of Scotland,' and commending to Edward's confidence the two bearers, the Prior of the Dominicans of Perth and brother Arnold. The two friars were to deliver an oral communication, and bring back the King's answer. There remains no record of the matter of either message or reply. It is not easy to suppose that the business was of no deeper import than formal and complimentary intercourse. In view of the circumstances, it all but certainly must have borne reference, in part at least, to the settlement of the succession. The political record of the Bishop of St. Andrews is not calculated to disarm suspicion. Edward, at any rate, appears to have been satisfied, for he presently embarked for France, and remained away for more than three years.

Again, a few months later, Bruce of Annandale—ex-Chief-Justice of England, smarting under his recent supersession—Bruce and his principal adherents took quiet action in view of contingencies. On September 20, at his son's castle of Turnberry, fourteen Scots nobles—Patrick, Earl of Dunbar, and three sons; Walter, Earl of Menteith, and two sons; Bruce, lord of Annandale, and two sons; James, Steward (and one of the Guardians) of Scotland, and John his brother; and Angus, son of Donald of the Isles, and his son—entered into a stringent bond, obliging them to give faithful adherence to Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, and Lord Thomas de Clare (brother of Gilbert, Earl of Gloucester, Edward's son-in-law and Bruce's brother-in-law), 'in their affairs.' The nature of these affairs is not indicated, neither is there any other record of them. There is a suggestive clause saving their fealty to the King of England, and to 'him that shall obtain the kingdom of Scotland through blood relationship with King Alexander of blessed memory, according to the ancient customs in the Kingdom of Scotland approved and observed.' There is no direct reference to the child queen. It is useless to inquire what was the business that Richard de Burgh and Thomas de Clare had on hand or in contemplation. Plainly the instrument was simply a diplomatic process of binding all the parties together in support of such action as Bruce might take on the advice of a majority of their number, for advancing his pretensions to the throne of Scotland, when opportunity should serve. There is nothing to show that Edward ever had knowledge of this bond.

Somewhere about this time, moreover, Bruce passed from speculation to action. Balliol, in his pleadings before Edward in 1291, averred that, in violation of their oath of fealty to Queen Margaret, 'Sir Robert Bruce and the Earl of Carrick, his son, attacked the castle of Dumfries with fire and arms, and banners displayed, and against the peace expelled the forces of the Queen, who held the same. Hence Sir Robert advanced to the castle of Buittle. He then caused a proclamation to be made by one Patrick M'Guffock, within the bailiary of the said castle,' with the result that good subjects were driven from the land. 'Furthermore,' the allegation ran, 'the Earl of Carrick, by the assent and power of his father, took the Lady of Scotland's castle of Wigton, and killed several of her people there.' A number of entries in the Exchequer Rolls combine to support Balliol's charge, and even to show that the wave of disturbance was felt on the eastern seaboard. How Bruce was brought back to peaceable ways does not appear.

The temporary stir occasioned by Bruce's eagerness was the only ripple on the face of affairs for some three years. Early in 1289, however, Edward seems to have made up his mind to strengthen his hold on Scotland by a marriage between the young Queen and Prince Edward of Wales. The proposed parties, being cousins-german, were within the degrees prohibited by the canon law; and on May 8, Edward despatched Sir Otho de Grandison to Rome, with letters from himself and a petition from the Prince, soliciting from Pope Nicholas IV. the necessary dispensation. The idea may have presented itself to Edward's mind two years earlier; for on May 27, 1287, he had obtained a Bull from Pope Honorius IV. permitting him to marry his children to relatives in the fourth degree of affinity or consanguinity. However this may be, in April and May 1289, envoys passed to and fro between Edward and Eric on 'certain affairs,' which were no doubt affairs tending in the direction of the marriage. On November 6, commissioners representing the three countries concerned met at Salisbury, and concluded a treaty. Eric was to send the Queen to England or to Scotland by November 1 next year, free from matrimonial engagement. If she came to England, Edward would, on the establishment of security and peace in Scotland, and on the demand of the Scots nation, send her to Scotland, in like manner free from matrimonial engagement, provided 'the good nation of Scotland' gave 'sufficient and good security' to Edward not to marry her without the appointment and advice of himself and the assent of the King of Norway. The Scots envoys engaged to establish such order as to secure the Queen in the quiet enjoyment of her realm. The preamble of the treaty is framed so as to convey that Eric was the prime mover in the business. He is represented as having applied to Edward for aid and advice, the object being to secure for Edward's niece the obedience of her subjects and the free exercise and enjoyment of her royal powers, after the manner of other kings in their own kingdoms. On receiving this appeal, Edward, in his zeal for the peace of Scotland, and for the establishment of his niece in her rightful position, invited the Guardians to send commissioners to the Salisbury convention. But there can be no doubt that Edward himself was the prime mover. Eric certainly was loth to part with his child; he had made no representation on her behalf to the Scots Guardians, nor had they indicated any wish to have her in Scotland. On the other hand, Edward's project of marriage would naturally require her presence on this side of the North Sea; and his influence with Eric was backed by a recent loan of 2000 marks with easy arrangements for repayment, which seems not to have been yet discharged. It may be greatly doubted whether Edward was taking all this trouble out of disinterested anxiety for the welfare and royal status of his niece, or for the security of peace on the English border. The treaty gives no hint that the Salisbury commissioners had before them the marriage contemplated by Edward; the terms of the engagement of the Scots, as well as the absence of an express statement, would seem to negative the idea. Sufficient reason may be found in the fact that the dispensation had not then been granted, as well as in Edward's desire to proceed with most cautious steps. It is to be remarked that not only in the treaty, but also in the Prince's petition to the Pope, and in a communication of Edward's addressed to the Scottish people on the same day as the treaty was made, and counselling the obedience of all to the Guardians, the great object of the peace and reformation of Scotland is dwelt on with suspicious emphasis. Sir Otho de Grandison returned to London on December 31. With the irony of fate, the dispensation, which had been granted (and acknowledged handsomely in gold florins) on November 16, did not arrive in the form of a Bull till October 9, 1290, almost simultaneously with the arrival of the rumour of the Queen's death.

At a conference held at Brigham on March 14, 1290, the treaty of Salisbury was confirmed. Three days later, the Guardians, who had now at least been informed of Edward's intention and of the dispensation, addressed a letter to Edward assenting to the proposed marriage, and another letter to Eric urging him to send Margaret at once to England. It may seem strange that they should not have asked him to send her to Scotland; but Edward obviously had laid great stress on the alleged risks of the unsettled condition of the country; his solicitude, from a family point of view, was not at all unreasonable; probably enough he had impressed Eric with anxiety on the same ground; and the Guardians seem to have had no serious anticipation that their Queen's grand-uncle would infringe the international friendship of a century. The Guardians' letter to Eric was followed by one from Edward in the same sense, on April 17. Already the King's butler was down at Yarmouth, preparing and victualling 'a great ship' to carry Edward's plenipotentiary, Antony Bek, the astute and magnificent Bishop of Durham, with an imposing retinue, to Norway. The preparations took forty days; and at length Bek sailed from Hartlepool on the 9th of May. Bek was an adept in smoothing the diplomatic path; he distributed judicious annuities to Norwegian friends to the extent of £400 a year till the Queen should attain the age of fifteen. Presumably the grand outfitting of the ship implies that the Queen was expected to come over in it; but it returned without her in June. It was not till September that Eric set out with his daughter. In the beginning of September, accordingly, Edward again despatched Bek, this time to Orkney, to meet the Maid. He was also attentive enough to send an ample variety of jewels for the Queen's use. At almost every step in the proceedings, the records betray his eager haste. The Guardians exhibited no such fervour; it was not till October 3 that they accredited their envoys, and already they had been urged to action by Edward.

Meantime the Guardians had been taking thought for the security of the kingdom. The negotiations with Edward issued in the treaty of Brigham on July 18, 1290. By this treaty it was provided that the laws, liberties, and customs of Scotland should remain inviolate for ever, and that the realm should remain separate from, and entirely independent of, England. No parchment terms could have done more to secure independence. There was, indeed, an insidious saving clause, steadily recurrent, which reserved such rights as Edward or others might have; but whether intended to neutralise the specific provisions or not, it must be regarded as purely formal.

The ardent development of Edward's care for his grand-niece and his son ought to have been at least suggestive. There remain two striking documents, dated August 28. In one of them, the Guardians agree to deliver the castles of Scotland under certain conditions to their Queen and Prince Edward; and in the other, Edward notifies the Guardians of his appointment of Bishop Bek to act in concert with them as lieutenant of the royal couple. For it was incumbent upon him to respect his oath to maintain the laws of Scotland. He even appears to have gone so far as to demand the surrender of the castles to himself, but this demand the Guardians refused.

The whole of the laborious structure was levelled to the ground on October 7, when the Bishop of St. Andrews reported to Edward the rumour of the Queen's death at Orkney. The Queen had died on the passage from 'Norrowa' o'er the faem.' The details are unknown. The very fact, indeed, has been questioned; for a young woman claiming to be Margaret, and telling a circumstantial story of her being kidnapped at Orkney on the voyage to Scotland, was burnt at the stake at Bergen in 1301 as an impostor. Be this as it may, the luckless Margaret now passes out of the history of Scotland, leaving a divided kingdom face to face with the aroused cupidity of a determined, astute, and unscrupulous neighbour.

THE ASSERTION OF OVER-LORDSHIP.

Who should now succeed Margaret on the Scottish throne? Fordun relates that Malcolm, the first 'rex Scotiae,' decreed a change in the principle of succession. This enactment is said to have provided that thenceforth each king should be succeeded by whoever was, at the time being, the next descendant; that is, a son or a daughter, a nephew or a niece, the nearest then living. It is not at all unlikely that the disturbance of the balance of the kingdom by the acquisition of Lothian may have rendered the substitution of the Teutonic for the Keltic law of succession expedient, or even necessary. The claims of Balliol and Bruce alone need to be considered; and if this law was formally established, the letter of it would be a strong support to Bruce's candidature, whatever the spirit of its intention. For the present purpose, however, we are not concerned with the validity of the claims of either competitor, but mainly with the process whereby the final decision was reached. The essential point is to discern the real spirit governing the evolution of events.

The death of Margaret at once urged the competitors to fresh activity. The Guardians were divided in their sympathies, and the division no doubt ran deep into the community. The first overt movement, so far as existing documents indicate, was made by Bruce. It was an indirect, tentative operation. Towards the end of the year (1290), an appeal was preferred to Edward by 'the seven earls' and the community of the realm of Scotland against the Bishop of St. Andrews and Sir John Comyn in respect of their action as Guardians. The appellants asserted their privilege of placing the King of Scotland on the throne, complained of acts of oppression exercised by the Guardians on Donald Earl of Mar and the freemen of Moray, narrated the recognition of Robert Bruce of Annandale as next heir to the throne by Alexander II., and alleged some minor grievances. At this time there were only four Guardians, the Earl of Fife having been murdered and the Earl of Buchan having died; and the two not inculpated, the Steward of Scotland and the Bishop of Glasgow, were fast friends of Bruce. Mar and Moray also leant to Bruce's faction. Evidently the appeal was promoted in the interests of Bruce, and with his knowledge, if not positively at his instigation. There is no record of any answer.

There is a glimpse of still earlier action by Bruce in the letter of the Bishop of St. Andrews to Edward, reporting the rumour of the Queen's death. The rumour arrived when the Estates were sitting to receive Edward's answer to the refusal to surrender the castles to him. Bruce, the Bishop says, had not intended to be present, but, on hearing the rumour, had appeared with a strong following. His ultimate intentions the Bishop could not tell. Then follows a significant point. Should it unhappily prove true that the Queen is dead, the Bishop urges Edward to come to the marches without delay, with the view of preventing bloodshed, and of aiding the faithful of the land to place on the throne the man that possesses the proper title—meaning, of course, Balliol. To interpret the Bishop as merely currying favour with the King is probably a large stretch of charity. He certainly stood in a small minority in desiring Edward's intervention. The chroniclers, indeed, relate how the community of the realm, impressed by the ancient friendship between the two kingdoms and the particular cordiality of Alexander III. and Edward, invited the English King to arbitrate on the claims of the competitors. But no such invitation is traceable in the records, and, on that ground alone, apart from the strong probabilities, it may safely be believed that such an invitation was never sent. There was not the least occasion for it, on either side. It certainly would not have represented the true feeling of the community of Scotland; and no doubt Edward was fully aware of the fact, for, in the whole transaction, he studiously treated that body with very scant regard.

The Waverley Annalist states that in March 1291, on the day after Ascension, Edward declared to his nobles, in the presence of nine of the competitors, who at the same time submitted their claims to him, that he was resolved to subdue Scotland as he had recently subdued Wales. But Edward was now on the peaceful tack of legal process. The competitors, though mostly great Scots nobles, were also mostly the liegemen of Edward for large possessions in England; and not one of them could dare to claim the throne of Scotland without regard to Edward's opinion. It was quite inevitable that every one of them should submit to his judgment. Besides their material interests in England, they were of Norman descent and of Norman upbringing and Norman sympathies, and thus they were largely alien to the mass of the Scottish population. Their interest in Scotland was little, if anything, more than a matter of land and lordship. They were quite content to take the kingdom of Scotland as a bigger fief. It was therefore the most natural thing in the world for them to leave the decision of the case in the hands of their liege lord, the King of England. For the community of Scotland the question wore a wholly different aspect.

Edward had taken good care not to allow the matter to slumber through the winter. He had sent forth his commands to all the religious houses of the land, requiring them to search diligently in their chronicles, and to transmit to him speedily extracts of all such passages as might bear on the relations of England and Scotland. Such of these extracts as had come to hand, he caused to be recited before his Parliament assembled at Norham on May 10. By the mouth of his Justiciary, Sir Roger le Brabazon, he set forth his solicitude for the peace of Scotland and his anxiety to do justice to all, and required the Scots prelates and nobles to recognise his superiority and direct lordship—a claim affirmed to be 'clear, from chronicles found in different monasteries and other places in England and Scotland, from other sources of information, from certain documents, and on most evident reasons.' The Scots nobles present, although previously informed of Edward's intentions, represented their inability to reply without further consultation with nobles and others not then present. The meeting was adjourned till next day, when Bishop Bek, not Edward personally, announced that they might take three weeks, at the end of which time they would be expected to produce any evidence they might be able to find against the King's claim of superiority.

Meantime the returns from the religious houses continued to pour in. The Scots nobles also must have exhibited anxiety for the independence of Scotland; for on May 31 Edward made them a declaration that the coming of the magnates and the Community of Scotland to Norham should not be drawn into a precedent in prejudice of the liberties of the realm. Then, on June 2, the Scots nobles assembled on Upsetlington Green—Holywell Haugh—on the north side of the Tweed, opposite to Norham Castle. The Bishop of Bath and Wells, Chancellor of England, with the usual preliminary flourish about the gracious feelings and intentions of Edward, informed them that the Kings of England from the remotest times had held the over-lordship of Scotland. They themselves, he pointed out, had not even now brought forward any evidence in disproof of Edward's claim. Edward, therefore, in the exercise of his right, would proceed to investigate and decide the rights of the claimants. Eight of these, who were present, formally acknowledged Edward's supremacy.

Next day the proceedings were resumed on the English side of the Tweed, in the parish church of Norham. Balliol, who had been absent on the previous day, now made his acknowledgment. The Bishop of Bath and Wells advanced Edward's pretensions another step; he explained that Edward did not construe the possession and exercise of his right of over-lordship as excluding his hereditary right of lordship. Then, as to the mode of proceeding towards the determination of the claims of the competitors, Edward suggested that the chief claimants, Balliol and Bruce, should each, on behalf of themselves and such other competitors as should agree, nominate forty arbiters or auditors, the King himself being content to nominate twenty-four, more or less, to hear the evidence and to report to him, whereupon he would give his decision. The one hundred and four arbiters were appointed accordingly on July 5; and next day they fixed the hearing to take place at Berwick, the King himself appointing August 2 as the date.

The 11th of June had been a memorable day. The Guardians formally resigned the kingdom and its castles to Edward as over-lord. The Bishop of Caithness, on the nomination of the Scots nobles, was appointed by Edward Chancellor of Scotland; and with him was associated the King's own clerk, Sir Walter de Amundesham (Amersham), who was presently (August 18) succeeded by Adam de Botingdon. Two days later, Sir Brian Fitz Alan was associated with the Guardians in Edward's interest; the first batch of Scots prelates and barons swore fealty on the Holy Evangels; and Edward, 'as over-lord of Scotland,' ordered the governors of castles in Scotland to deliver them over to governors of his own appointment, the common consent of the Scots Guardians and of the competitors being recorded; and Edward, as over-lord, proclaimed his peace. On June 17 a general order was issued that all freeholders should swear fealty to Edward. The terms of the ordinance as to homage and fealty, which had been settled on June 12 at Norham by Edward 'with the advice of the prelates and magnates of Scotland there present,' were comprehensive and precise. They applied to 'all, both clerical and lay, who would have been bound to make homage and fealty to a living king of Scotland.' All that came were to be admitted; those that came and refused were to be arrested till performance; those that did not come, but excused themselves for good reason, were to be allowed till next Parliament; those that neither came nor excused themselves were to be 'more straitly distrained' till they conformed. Thus, to all appearance, Edward held Scotland in the grip of his iron hand—the reward of a patient diplomacy.

The great process was resumed on August 3 at Berwick. The competitors, now increased to twelve, presented their claims in technical form before the hundred and four auditors. The first object was to decide the point of law at issue between Balliol and Bruce, namely, whether the nearer descendant by the younger child or the more remote descendant by the elder child had the preferable title. 'Perhaps,' as Burton says, 'the policy of the arrangement lay in this, that in Bruce and Balliol, and those they might bring with them, the Lord Superior knew whom he had to deal with personally; among a set of miscellaneous strangers, bringing their friends and supporters into the controversy, he might find troublesome people.' The question, if in some sense 'a by-question between two claimants,' nevertheless went to the root of the claims of the two competitors that were obviously first in the running. The proceedings went on, without getting much farther forward, till August 12, when Edward adjourned the sittings to June 2, 1292.

It had been alleged that some document founded upon by the Count of Holland was missing, and this gave the King a welcome opportunity of further demonstrating his resolution to do justice to the last iota. On this 12th of August he appointed certain commissioners to examine all documents presented by suitors or 'in any way touching us and our kingdom,' whether in Edinburgh Castle or elsewhere in Scotland. Under the order many papers were carried away and deposited in Berwick Castle. It does not appear that anything of importance or of immediate relevance was discovered. Certainly Edward found nothing to support his claim of over-lordship, otherwise he would have utilised it, and had it carefully recorded. Whatever his real intention in directing the search, his subsequent dealings with Scotland gave colour—and probably quite false colour—to later allegations charging him with the express purpose of wantonly destroying the national records. During the next five or six days (August 13–18), Edward manifested his satisfaction with events in a manner peculiarly pleasing to some half-dozen Scots magnates. There remains a record of certain grants he made to the Bishop of Glasgow, James Steward of Scotland, Earl Patrick of Dunbar, Sir John de Soulis, Sir William de St. Clair, Sir Patrick de Graham, and Sir William de Soulis. These grants are expressed to be made for various expenditure, and 'also for the zeal' the grantee 'had and has to promote peace and tranquillity among the people' of Scotland. The record, however, is cancelled in the Rolls, for the very sufficient reason that the particular grants were not made after all, equivalents being given instead. Every reader may make his own comment.

While English counsels ruled the policy of the Guardians, and English castellans stretched their mailed hands over Scotland from the strongholds, the great cause dragged on. At length, June 2, 1292, came round, and Edward resumed the process at Berwick. A thirteenth competitor now presented himself—Eric, King of Norway. Edward professed anxiety to reach a decision, for was he not moved by the sore desolation of Scotland? Still the contest surged about the claims of Bruce and Balliol. How to arrive at the right decision? The Scots auditors would greatly assist the King to expedite matters if they would inform him on what laws and customs he is to proceed. The Scots auditors are helpless to decide without further consideration and advice; perhaps the English auditors would aid them? The English auditors join in consultation, but they shrink from answering without further and more precise advice, which they might perhaps obtain from the prelates and nobles of England. Apparently, then, there must be a further adjournment. Edward accordingly fixed October 14 for next meeting, and stated that in the meantime he and the rest of the parties interested would take the best advice to be found anywhere in the two kingdoms.

It is not relevant to the present purpose to pursue the arguments of the October meeting. On the 15th the case was closed, no doubt after private diplomatic dealing with the competitors. On November 17, Edward announced his decision in great state in the hall of Berwick Castle—in favour of Balliol. Thereupon he issued orders to the Guardians to deliver seisin of the kingdom to the new King, and to the castellans of the twenty-three chief strongholds to deliver them over to Balliol or his representatives. On the 20th, Balliol swore fealty to Edward at Norham; on the 30th he was enthroned at Scone; then he went back to Newcastle-on-Tyne, and, having eaten his Christmas dinner with his over-lord, did homage to him next morning as an invested King. On January 2, by letters patent, sealed by Balliol, by two great prelates, and by ten of the principal nobles of Scotland, Edward was acquitted of all obligations incurred by him while the country was in his hands; and two days later he acknowledged that his rights in Scotland were limited to homage and its pertinents. Some special favours of a pecuniary nature within the next few months intimate Edward's satisfaction with his royal henchman. But these marks of the over-lord's pleasure were far from counterbalancing the dissatisfaction openly and ominously manifested in his kingdom of Scotland.

Two or three points in this prolonged process invite particular remark. In the first place, as Burton justly points out,

'What confers a strange interest on the selfish squabble and the array of technicalities and pleadings called out by it, is that there is no more allusion to the rights of the Community of Scotland, or the way in which a decision may affect them, than there need be in any private litigation. They have no more place in the question than the tenants on an estate while the settlements are disputed. So far as one can gather from the terms of the documents, it never seems to have occurred to the greedy litigants themselves or their astute technical advisers, that there was a fierce self-willed people, nourished in independence and national pride, who must be bent or broken before the subtleties and pedantries of the Lord Superior's court would be of any avail. Totally unconscious they seem also to have been that the intricate technicalities which dealt with a sovereign independent State as a mere piece of property in search of an owner, formed an insult never to be forgiven, whatever might be the cost of repudiation and vengeance.'

Edward himself, however, was gifted with a deeper insight than all the rest. He at least was thoroughly aware of the deeper elements of the problem, and of their difficult character. At the Upsetlington meeting, while the prelates and nobles had nothing to urge against Edward's claims—for Wyntoun's record of the Bishop of Glasgow's bold denial of the pretended right of superiority must be held in suspense—the 'Community' of Scotland undoubtedly presented a protest. What this body had to say on the point, most unfortunately we do not know. It finds no place in the very full record of proceedings preserved in the Great Roll of Scotland. There is, however, no doubt at all that some answer was made, and that it was set aside as 'nothing to the point' (nihil efficax). But Burton's comment deserves to be carefully borne in mind. 'Transactions,' he shrewdly remarks, 'are profusely recorded, as if for the purpose of courting all inquiry into doubts or difficulties that might affect conclusions, yet one ever feels, throughout all this candour, that the truth is to be found somewhere behind, and that the abundance of punctilious record is devised to conceal it.' The exclusion of all notice of the action of the Community from the official record must be taken to have been deliberate. But it was an act of policy, not of inappreciation, on the part of the King.

There is another element in certain documents of the time that confirms this conclusion in a very striking manner. In the official record of the case, Edward is designated Lord Superior at every turn. There is a marked contrast, however, in the order he directed to each of the Scots castellans to deliver over their strongholds to English successors. 'In the preamble,' Burton points out, 'Edward does not make display of his office of Lord Superior, as in the documents which were not to go to Scotland. He is Edward, King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Guienne; and he demands delivery of the fortress by assent of the Guardians and of the several candidates, and only towards the conclusion does he briefly bring in his title of "Soveryn Seygnur."' In this order, as well as in the order as to fealty, he judiciously associates with himself the prelates and magnates of the realm of Scotland. Obviously, he exercised sleepless discretion in the pushing of his claims, with a careful eye on the possible effects in a high-spirited community.

A word may also be said on the functions of the auditors. From the record of their appointment, it would seem to be plain enough that they were intended to sit together as a single board of referees. The magnanimity of Edward and his confidence in the justice of his cause were not ignored by the English chroniclers; eighty to twenty-four manifests a generosity of fairness. But then we have already seen that the auditors did not, at any rate always, act as a single body. At a late stage of the proceedings, two questions arose: By what law should the question be tried—by the Imperial (that is, the Civil or Roman) law, or by the laws and customs of England or Scotland? Is there any specialty in rank or dignity of this kingdom of Scotland that should exempt it from being adjudicated upon like the other tenures of the realm? 'On these two questions,' says Burton, 'King Edward's own council of twenty-four were alone consulted. "Those of Scotland," as the persons selected by Bruce and Balliol were termed, had no opportunity of recording their opinion on these, which, of all the questions put, were the most eminently national in their character.' This is a somewhat startling result, in view of the expectations raised by the terms of appointment. 'Yet,' Burton proceeds, 'it was so managed that they too should appear to have had a voice. It was put to the claimants, Balliol and Bruce, and to the eighty of Scotland selected by them, whether they could show any cause why the kingdom of Scotland—a fief of the King of England—should be treated differently from earldoms, baronies, and other tenures. Under nice distinctions in the ways of putting questions, the broad fact can be distinctly traced, that the twenty-four of England were advisers or referees of the supreme judge, Edward himself, as to the judgment to be given, while the eighty of Scotland were merely the advisers of the two claimants as to the position they should take up as litigants—what they should admit, and what they should dispute. Accordingly, the eighty are not heard in answer to the questions put; the competitors, Balliol and Bruce, give the answers.' Even, however, if the apparent intention to constitute a single board of 104 had been consistently maintained, the result would have been practically the same. The Balliol and the Bruce men would have neutralised each other, and the English twenty-four would have decided every point—and that, too, inevitably in the sense conformable to the mind of the King of England. The whole process was a gigantic palaver, impressing the grandeur, the legality, and the considerateness of Edward, while utilised as a cloak and a means for the remorseless prosecution of his designs upon the independence of Scotland.

It remains to inquire briefly into the substantial validity of the claim of over-lordship. It might augur industrious adventure to penetrate to the misty age of Brute the Trojan and Scota the daughter of the King of Egypt. It would be little less futile to trace the records of the chronicles collected by Edward from the time of Edward the Elder down through four centuries. It is hardly worth while even to deal with the submission of William the Lion when he was accidentally captured in 1174, before Alnwick Castle, on a raid into the north of England. The facts have been obscured by the greater anxiety of historians to fit them in with their preconceptions than to ascertain precisely the meaning of the plain record. If the release of William's obligations by Richard for 10,000 marks, to eke out his preparations for a crusade, has any meaning at all, it means clearly the restoration of the absolute independence of Scotland. The treaty of Falaise 'created the new condition of vassal and superior from that date'; and the Canterbury transactions released William from all the engagements that Henry II. thereby 'extorted from him,' as Richard's charter phrases it, 'by new deeds and by consequence of his captivity.' The competitor that submitted to Edward that Richard could not legally release the homage of Scotland, was either praise-worthily exhaustive or hopelessly barren of argument. It seems to demand a facile credulity to believe that William gave 10,000 marks to be released from one ground of an obligation that still remained valid against him on another ground not even specified in express terms, or that Richard placidly went off to the crusade, leaving on the northern marches of England an inviting opportunity to an active and aggrieved neighbour. That William should do homage for his estates in England was a matter of course, but quite a different matter.

Henry III. appears indeed to have entertained the claim of over-lordship. There is no reference to homage, however, in connection with the treaty of Newcastle. Henry and Alexander II. simply engaged not to abet each other's enemies, and not to invade each other's territories without just provocation. Nor, when Alexander III. succeeded to the throne in 1249, at the age of seven, did Henry put forward any claim of wardship—a fact especially significant of the relations between the kingdoms. It is no doubt true that Henry prayed Pope Innocent IV. to prohibit the anointing and crowning of the child King of Scots, on the ground that Alexander was his liege vassal; for so much appears from the Pope's letter of refusal, dated 1251. But Henry does not seem to have proceeded further in the matter. It is stated that, on the occasion of Alexander's marriage with his daughter Margaret in 1252 at York, Henry demanded homage for Scotland as a fief holden of England; and that the reply of the boy King, that he could not take such an important step without the knowledge and assent of his parliament, closed the question. The reply bears evident witness to the vigilance of Alexander's advisers. The like vigilance is to be remarked in the terms of the safe-conduct of Alexander and his queen to England in 1260. Neither the King nor his attendants should be required to treat of State affairs during the visit. In fact, Henry III., whatever his theoretical claims, never exercised the right of over-lordship. On the contrary, whenever he did interfere in the affairs of Alexander's kingdom, it was in the capacity of a friendly father-in-law, and under the style of 'Principal Councillor to the illustrious King of Scotland.'

The case of 1278 is strikingly illustrative. In that year Alexander did homage to Edward I. at Westminster, and the fact is recorded in a transcript of a Close Roll in absolute terms: 'I, Alexander, King of the Scots, become liege man of the Lord Edward, King of the English, against all nations.' Allen verified the entry, and found that the writing was upon an erasure. The suspicion aroused by the erasure is not lightened by the record of the proceedings preserved in the register of Dunfermline Abbey. There the scribe expressed the homage of Alexander very differently: 'I become your man for the lands which I hold of you in the kingdom of England, for which I owe you homage, saving my kingdom.' Furthermore, it is added: 'Then said the Bishop of Norwich, "And saving to the King of England, if he right have, your homage for your kingdom," to whom the King instantly replied, saying openly, "To homage for my kingdom of Scotland no man has right, except God alone, nor do I hold that kingdom otherwise than of God alone."' The vague and insidious use of such expressions as 'if he right have,' or 'whatever right he may have,' or 'whenever he chooses to exercise his right,' fostered the tendency to elevate a claim into a right. It indicates that there actually existed no right capable of definite formulation on firm grounds, or at any rate no right capable of assertion. The gross falsification of such records permits us to hold the Dunfermline scribe as at least an equal authority with the Westminster scribe. This convenient vagueness of suggestion of right reappears with like tameness in the tail of the treaty of Brigham.

Did King Edward honestly believe that he was entitled to the homage of the new King of Scots? The question may be least ungraciously answered by another question: Supposing the sides reversed, would Edward have submitted with intellectual conviction to the same claim advanced against himself on the same grounds? We decline to libel his intelligence. It is impossible to believe that he cared one atom for the chronicles he marshalled so industriously, except for indirect purposes. It is easy enough to understand that his conceptions of policy could readily justify a wrong as ministerial to what he conceived to be a higher right.

THE TRIUMPH OF AGGRESSION.

Uneasy lay the head that wore the crown of Scotland. The flatteries of King John's friends could not blind him to his isolation. The formal respect rendered to him often betrayed, not merely reluctance, but defiance and contempt. The leading men of the dissident factions soon proceeded to remove his friends from his side and to surround him with strangers, and even to take out of his control the direction of affairs. The St. Albans Annalist records that John dare not open his mouth, lest his people in their rage should starve him or throw him into a dungeon; 'he was like a lamb in the midst of wolves.'

John's uneasiness was not mitigated by the action of his suzerain. Edward mixed his early complaisances with disagreeable reminders. Thus, on December 31, 1292, he required John to attend at Newcastle on the appeal of Roger Bartholomew, a burgess of Berwick. It was in vain that John pointed Edward to the convention of Brigham, under which no Scotsman was to be required to plead in any legal proceeding out of the realm of Scotland; Edward insisted on the cancelment, not only of the convention, but of every document, known or unknown, calculated to restrict in any way the free exercise of his superiority. Again, on March 8, John was cited to answer in the English court for denial of justice to the indefatigable John Mazun, a merchant of Gascony, who had a big claim against the late Alexander III. In a fortnight's time, March 25, John was again cited to appear before the English parliament to answer an appeal of Macduff of Kilconquhar from a decision of the Scots parliament in February. John did not appear. He was again cited to appear on October 14. He did appear then, but the only answer to be extracted from him was that he dare not act without consultation with the Estates of his realm—an answer probably put in his mouth by his Stirling parliament in August. He was cast in heavy damages; and, on the principle that the wrongdoer should be curtailed in the means of wrongdoing, it was resolved that the three principal castles in Scotland, with their towns, should be delivered over to the Lord Superior till his vassal should have purged his contumacy. John humbled himself, however, before judgment was formally given, and Edward granted a further postponement. Meantime, in June and September, two more summonses had come; and two more followed in November. The English parliament had, indeed, passed certain standing orders, including one that admitted no excuse of absence from either party. John was bound to be constantly trotting up and down, on the most trivial matters. Edward was undoubtedly within his technical rights, and, as Lord Hailes says, he was bent on exercising them 'with the most provoking rigour.' 'It is easy to see,' as Burton remarks, 'that his immediate object was to subject his new vassal to deep humiliation.'

Meantime the King of France was preparing to mete out to Edward the same measure as Edward was meting out to John. He summoned Edward to answer before the Twelve Peers in December for certain acts of aggression of Englishmen upon French subjects in the preceding spring. Regarding the summons as a pretext for the annexation of his French dominions, Edward stayed at home and temporised; but in February Philip declared him contumacious, and in May pronounced forfeiture of his fiefs. Edward kept up negotiations, but prepared for war; and, as over-lord of Scotland, he summoned Balliol and twenty-one Scots magnates to join him with their forces at London on September 1, 1294. John attended the English parliament, and contributed three years' rental of his large English estates. But his magnates disregarded the summons, and, when pressed, alleged their inability.

Edward's difficulties between France and Wales, as well as at home, furnished both encouragement and opportunity to the discontent seething in Scotland. A parliament was held at Scone. The Estates dismissed all English court officials, and appointed a Council of Twelve, probably after the model of the Twelve Peers of the King of France, to conduct the government. John was formally reduced to a figure-head. Urged by his Council, and stung by the humiliations heaped upon him by Edward, he entered into a secret alliance, offensive and defensive, with Philip of France, under which his son and heir, Edward Balliol, was to marry Philip's niece, the eldest daughter of Charles, Count of Valois and Anjou. John accredited his envoys to Philip in July 1295; the treaty was signed by Philip in October; and John ratified it at Dunfermline on February 23, 1295–96, with the assent, not only of his prelates and nobles, but also of the chief burgh corporations and other public bodies of the kingdom. The scheme was carefully placed 'on a broad popular basis,' and it seems to have been arranged with as little publicity as was consistent with a wide representation of the nation. 'This was the starting of that great policy which had so much influence for centuries on both sides of the British Channel—the policy of France and Scotland taking common counsel against England.'

In the course of the early autumn of 1295, it is likely that Edward got wind of John's treasonable doings. He issued summonses for his memorable parliament of November. Perhaps as a feeler, he required John to expel all Frenchmen and Flemings, his enemies, from Scotland; otherwise, to put in his hands the three castles and towns of the eastern frontier—Berwick, Roxburgh, and Jedburgh. The first alternative was firmly refused; but it appears from an existing document that the castles were delivered over to the Bishop of Carlisle. On October 16, there are two remarkable records: one is the engagement of Edward to his 'beloved and faithful' John to redeliver the three castles and towns at the end of the French war; the other is a circular order to all the sheriffs in England to take into the King's hand all the lands and goods of Balliol and of all other Scotsmen staying in Scotland, within their respective jurisdictions. Were these castles ever delivered to Edward? That is to say, was the engagement of October 16 (with the order to the Bishop to take delivery, dated October 12) only anticipative, and never operative? There is, indeed, strong historical support to the view that the Scots absolutely refused both alternatives, and shook in Edward's face Pope Celestine's absolution of them from homage and fealty. The confiscation order was probably Edward's counterstroke. It was followed up on February 13 by an order for the sale of all goods on such lands, excepting only agricultural stock and implements, the proceeds to go into the Exchequer.

The inevitable collision was precipitated by an outbreak at Berwick, in which some English merchants were killed and their goods seized. On February 23, Edward issued urgent orders to hurry up the forces appointed to meet him at Newcastle-on-Tyne, directing that 'neither for assizes, gaol deliveries, or any other business' is the Sheriff of York to hinder the men of his county from arriving on the day fixed, apparently March 1. He summoned John to Newcastle to answer for the Berwick riot and his breaches of allegiance, but of course John declined the invitation.

About the middle of March, Edward moved to Wark, just abandoned by the romantically traitorous Robert de Ros; but he appears to have had scruples about commencing the invasion of Scotland till Easter was past. Then, on March 28, he passed the Tweed with 30,000 foot and 5000 armed horse, and on March 30 he took Berwick town without any effective opposition. As Burton records—

'There is an awful unanimity of testimony to the merciless use made of the victory. The writer who knew best of all describes the King as rabid, like a boar infested with the hounds, and issuing the order to spare none; and tells how the citizens fell like the leaves in autumn, until there was not one of the Scots who could not escape left alive, and he rejoices over their fate as a just judgment for their wickedness.'

The gallantry of the Flemings in defence of their Red Hall only ensured their destruction. 'Thus it was on the community among whom the protection of the Lord Superior was first sought that his vengeance first fell.' Berwick, 'the great city of merchant princes,' a 'second Alexandria,' was reduced to a common market-town. 'Such a massacre,' says Pearson, 'had not been witnessed within the four seas since the ravage of the North by the Conqueror. From this time a sea of blood lay between the English King and his Scottish dominion.' The castle was surrendered the same day by Sir William Douglas, on guarantee of the lives of the garrison. Edward remained at Berwick nearly a month, actively refortifying the town.

It was in Berwick Castle, on April 5, that Edward received John's formal renunciation. John bluntly complained that he had been vexatiously cited to England at the trifling instance of anybody and everybody; that, without fault on his part, Edward had taken possession of his and his subjects' castles, lands, and possessions within his kingdom of Scotland; that Edward had taken his and his subjects' goods by land and sea, and resetted them in England; that Edward had killed merchants and other inhabitants of his kingdom; that Edward had forcibly carried off subjects of his from Scotland, and detained them in prison in England; that Edward had paid no heed to his representations; and that Edward had publicly summoned his army, and had now come with 'an innumerable multitude of armed men' to strip him and his subjects of their inheritance, and had approached with hostile intent the boundaries of his kingdom—nay, had crossed them, and had committed atrocities of slaughter, arson, and violence by land and sea. John therefore resigned fealty and homage on behalf of himself and all others of his realm that might adhere to him. 'Has the felon fool done such a silly thing?' the King is said to have exclaimed. 'If he will not come to us, we will go to him.' But it is far from apparent why Edward should have manifested any such surprise.

On March 26, while Edward lay at Wark, a large body of Scots, under Comyn, Earl of Buchan, made a foray from Annandale into Cumberland, assaulting Carlisle (where Bruce of Annandale was governor), and burning a large part of the city. On April 8, too, a foray was made by the same body from Jedburgh into Northumberland, wasting Coquetdale and Redesdale, and burning Corbridge, Hexham, and Lanercost. These expeditions were futile and inglorious efforts of retaliation. The troops returned to Jedburgh, and then took possession of Dunbar Castle, to reduce which Edward despatched a strong force under Warenne. The governor of the castle, Sir Richard Siward, agreed with Warenne to surrender unless relieved within three days. On the morning of the third day, Balliol's army came in sight, and, mistaking an irregularity of movement of the English troops for a retreat, rushed upon them from a stronger position, and was defeated, with fearful slaughter. Barons and squires crowded for refuge in the castle; Sir Patrick de Graham, whose fruitless valour extorted the unanimous admiration of Englishmen, died sword in hand. The castle surrendered next day to Edward himself, who consigned the flower of the fighting strength of Scotland to a score of castles in England and Wales. There is much reason to doubt whether Siward did not prove a traitor; and it looks as if the Scots nobles were entirely ignorant of his agreement for surrender.

Scotland lay prostrate before the invader. Having appointed constables of the eastern border castles, Edward marched on Edinburgh, which surrendered after an eight days' siege. At Stirling he encountered no opposition: all had fled. Yet the record of the gaol delivery at Stirling on June 19 affords an interesting glimpse of the spirit of resistance. Thomas, the chaplain of Edinburgh, who was charged with publicly excommunicating the King with bell and candle, confessed frankly that he did so in the King's despite; and Richard Gulle, charged with ringing the bell, likewise confessed. Both culprits were, by order of Edward, delivered to the Archdeacon of Lothian.

On July 7, in the churchyard of Stracathro, John renounced his treaty with the King of France. And on July 10, in Brechin Castle, he formally resigned his kingdom and people, with his royal seal, to the Bishop of Durham, on behalf of the King of England. There was an end of 'Toom Tabard' as King of Scotland. He was kept in England at Hertford, the Tower, and elsewhere, till July 18, 1299, when he was delivered by Sir Robert de Burghersh, Constable of Dover, to the Papal Nuncio, Reynaud, Bishop of Vincenza, at Wissant in France, 'for disposal by his Holiness.' He lived to hear of the decisive victory of Bannockburn.

From the middle of March onwards to autumn, homage and fealty were performed up and down Scotland to Edward and his representatives. Edward himself passed north to Elgin, and after a triumphal progress of twenty-one weeks returned to Berwick on August 22. He appointed John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey and Sussex, Governor of Scotland; Sir Hugh de Cressingham, Treasurer; and Sir William de Ormsby, Justiciar. He committed the subordinate wardenships, castles, and sheriffdoms to English officers. He made arrangements for the establishment of a new Treasury at Berwick, on the model of the Treasury at Westminster. He broke in pieces the ancient Great Seal of Scotland, and substituted a new seal. He had enforced his 'property and possession' of the realm of Scotland. Yet he left behind him the active germs of retribution.

Among Edward's spoliations were two notable national possessions. One was the Black or Holy Rood, 'a certified fragment of the true Cross preserved in a shrine of gold or silver gilt.' It had been brought over by St. Margaret, who left it as a sacred legacy to her descendants and their realm. The other, an even more honoured possession, was the Stone of Destiny—'the palladium of Scotland.' It was reputed to have been Jacob's pillow what time he saw the vision of the angels ascending and descending the ladder, and to have been brought to Scotland by the eponymous Scota the daughter of Pharaoh. It was enshrined in the coronation chair of the Kings of Scotland. Edward had it similarly enshrined in a chair that became the coronation throne of the Kings of England. His superstition might have been overawed by the prophetic couplet—Boece says inscription—

'Ni fallat fatum, Scoti, quocunque locatum
Invenient lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem.'

That is to say:

'Unless the Fates are faithless grown,
And prophet's voice be vain,
Where'er is found this sacred stone,
The Scottish race shall reign.'

For a hundred years before the death of Alexander III., the peaceful administration and firm policy of the Scottish kings had immensely strengthened Scotland both in her internal organisation and in her external influence. It had inspired respect in the strongest of contemporary English sovereigns. Between Alexander III. and Edward I. there prevailed a genuine cordiality, based not more on family relationship than on political conduct. On the unexpected death of Alexander, the active mind of Edward must very promptly have perceived a great opportunity of annexing Scotland, as he had just annexed Wales. But strong-handed and imperious as he was, he was also governed by ideas of legal procedure, and still more by policy. Warrior as he was, he would still prefer to attain his ends by politic address. He could not in decency raise his mailed hand against the infant granddaughter of his own sister, or arbitrarily pick a quarrel with a friendly nation at accidental disadvantage by the tragic and premature death of his amicable brother-in-law. The project of marrying the child Queen to his eldest son was a stroke of policy of the happiest conception for the peaceful attainment of his purposes. The death of the Queen and the rivalry of the competitors threw him on fresh lines of action, plausibly justifiable by the necessity of protecting his own kingdom from the results of internal discord on the northern border. The prolongation of the dispute as to the succession appears to have been very much due to his waiting for the opening up of the smoothest line of advance. The preference of Balliol, after an ostentatiously elaborate process of legal formality, not only wore the aspect of a profound homage to law, but also placed on the throne of Scotland the candidate that would be most plastic in his hands. The successive steps show clearly, from the first idea of the marriage at least, the gradual and deliberate tightening of a resolute grasp upon the kingdom of Scotland. If Edward had really believed that he was entitled to the over-lordship of Scotland, it is extremely difficult to understand why he did not at once claim the wardship of the infant Margaret. The enforcement of such a claim would have been awkward enough at a moment when he needed all his force elsewhere; but he might at least have put it forward. He could not have been unaware of this right if it had actually existed. Again, as Macpherson says, 'it seems very surprising that he did not claim the crown of Scotland for himself as heir of Malcolm Kenmore, whose grand-daughter Mald was his great-great-grandmother.' Such an astute intellect as his could not have been impressed with the documentary authorities arrayed by patriotic priests and supported by sycophantic officials. It is not easy to resist the conclusion that the claim was neither more nor less than a fraudulent contrivance of a semblance of legality to cover the aggression of a rapacious ambition. If the persecution of John was purely the outcome of Edward's 'exasperating legality,' it does as little credit to his political capacity as the atrocity of his vengeance at Berwick and his tyrannical settlement of the conquered country. Already, however, in the breast of an obscure young man in an obscure district of the west of Scotland there were surging turbulent feelings of personal and patriotic resentment, destined eventually to overturn all these calculations of ambitious aggression. That young man was William Wallace of Elderslie.

[CHAPTER II]
Wallace's Family and Early Years

'Off Scotland born, my rycht name is Wallace.'

Harry, ix. 247.

'At Wallace' name what Scottish blood
But boils up in a spring-tide flood?'

Burns.

'In happy tym for Scotland thow was born.'

Harry, viii. 1646.

William Wallace was the second son of Sir Malcolm Wallace of Elderslie, and of his wife Margaret, daughter of Sir Reginald Crawford of Crosby, hereditary Sheriff of Ayr.

Blind Harry, a perfervid Scot himself, and keenly jealous for the perfection of his hero, exhibits lively anxiety to impress the fact that Wallace was a thorough Scotsman—'of whole lineage and true line of Scotland.' Sir Malcolm, he says, at his marriage,

'Elderslie then had in heritage,
Auchinbothie, and other sundry place.
The great-grandson he was of good Wallace,
The which Wallace full worthily then wrought
When Walter her of Wales from Warin sought.'

And for further information he refers to the history of 'the right line of the first Steward.' He does not pursue the female line.

The connection of the Wallaces with the Stewards of Scotland is abundantly evidenced. Walter Fitz Alan, the first Steward, came from Oswestry in Shropshire, where his father, Alan, son of Flaald, a Norman, had obtained considerable lands from William the Conqueror, and had married a daughter of Warin, the Sheriff of the county. He was appointed Steward of the royal household by David I., who also assigned him extensive lands in Ayr and Renfrew. He would be followed to Scotland by families of local descent, who would settle under him in Kyle. A Richard Walense, who witnessed charters of Walter, is found at Riccarton (Ricardtun). Two more Richards follow, contemporary with the next three Stewards, the third Richard witnessing charters of the fourth Steward, and extending the territorial possessions of the family. At the head of the Elderslie branch appears a Henry Walense, supposed to be a brother of the first Richard, holding the lands of Elderslie under the first Steward. An Adam Walense, possibly a son of Henry, is found in connection with the third and fourth Stewards, and this Adam has been supposed to be the father of Sir Malcolm. The lands of Auchinbothie, in Lochwinnoch, were acquired by a Wallace of Elderslie.

It does not seem possible, on the available evidence, to place the known members of the Riccarton and Elderslie lines—if indeed they were parallel lines—in their definite positions of relationship, except with the caution of probability. Harry makes Sir Richard Wallace of Riccarton the uncle of his hero, William Wallace of Elderslie; but the use of the word uncle may be definite or lax. All that can be confidently affirmed—and it is enough for the present purpose—is this, that all these Wallaces of Riccarton, Elderslie, Auchinbothie, and 'other sundry place,' belonged to the same family, and that, at the birth of the hero, that family had been settled in Scotland for more than a full century.

The family of Crawford is traced back to Thorlongus, an Anglo-Danish chief, who was driven out of Northumberland by the Conqueror, and obtained lands in the Merse from Edgar about the commencement of the twelfth century. Early in the thirteenth century, at any rate, a Sir Reginald Crawford married the heiress of Loudon, and was created first hereditary Sheriff of Ayr; and his grandson in the main line was the father of Margaret Crawford, the wife of Sir Malcolm Wallace. It may be confidently accepted that, on the side of the spindle as well as on the side of the spear, William Wallace's ancestors were domiciled Scots for more than a hundred years before he was born.

The ultimate origin of the Wallace family thus dwindles to extreme unimportance. It has been contended that the very name shows that the family was Welsh or Keltic; that the name 'was used of the Wallaces, or Welsh, of Elderslie, or elsewhere, not so much as a surname as a description,' and hence it is often given as 'le Waleys.' It may be so, but not at all necessarily. Again, it is certain that Wallaces came over among the Normans, and ancestors of the Wallaces of Kyle may have come over in the train of ancestors of the Stewards. But after the lapse of a century it is really not of the slightest practical consequence whether the family was originally Welsh or Norman—or otherwise. We do not, as did the English nobles of 1238, cavil at Simon de Montfort as a Frenchman; nor did the Irish of our own day cavil at Parnell as an Englishman. Much less, then, is it reasonable to cavil at Wallace as a foreigner; for he had behind him a hundred years of ancestry on Scottish soil, and his forebears were lowly enough to be associated in spirit with the people of the land far more than with the exotic barons, who preserved Anglo-Norman habits and feelings by free intercourse with England and the English court. Wallace was undoubtedly 'of whole lineage and true line of Scotland'; and through his social position he was thoroughly in touch with the national feeling.

At Elderslie, in all probability, Wallace was born. The times were perfectly quiet, and but for accidental circumstances, it seems unlikely that his mother would have been away from her home on the occasion. Harry makes the mayor of St. Johnston speak of Wallace as 'born in to the West.'

The precise date of his birth cannot be determined with certainty. The chroniclers describe him as a young man (juvenis) at the battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297. The description is elastic, but probably it would not have been used at all unless it had been intended to mark the fact that his youthfulness was particularly striking. Harry is definite—doubly definite; but he is vexatiously contradictory. He is, indeed, emphatic on the point of Wallace's youth; but he gives two violently conflicting statements without supplying the means of confident decision in favour of either.

In the first place, early in his poem, Harry makes Wallace eighteen when he killed young Selby at Dundee. The date he intends is evidently about December or January 1296–97. This would make Wallace about nineteen at Stirling Bridge—an age incredible to many, though, in our opinion, not very difficult to accept. The Selby episode, however, may readily be thrown back to 1291–92, in which case Wallace would have been of the more mature age of twenty-three or twenty-four at Stirling Bridge, while still his youth would be distinctive enough for special remark. This age is accepted by the Marquess of Bute, who would place Wallace's birth in 1274; and it is an age that would still favour the Marquess's impression that Wallace's extreme youth 'was one of the reasons for the shyness with which he was undoubtedly looked upon by many of the more leading among his own countrymen.'

In the next place, however, towards the end of his poem, Harry expressly states that Wallace was said to be forty-five when he was betrayed to the English; and here he seems to rely specifically on Blair and Gray, on whose chronicle of Wallace's deeds he professes to base his poem. In xi. 1425–8, he says:

'Thir twa knew best off gud Schir Wilȝhamys deid,
Fra xvi ȝer quhill xxixty ȝeid.
xl and v off age Wallace was cauld
That tym that he was to [the] Southron sauld.'

Now, if Wallace was forty-five in 1305, he would have been born in 1260, and would have been thirty-seven at Stirling Bridge; but then he would hardly have been described as juvenis; nor does forty-five fit in with Harry's previous chronology, which ought also to agree with Blair's record. Carrick makes a desperate effort at reconciliation, by suggesting that the transcriber of Harry wrote 'forty' instead of 'thirty'; but 16 + 29 = 45 in incontrovertible arithmetic. There remains, however, this insuperable difficulty—twenty-nine years back from 1305 brings us to 1276, some ten years before the death of Alexander III.; and during this decade, as well as for at least five years later, there was profound peace, and there could have been no 'deid' of Wallace's for Blair and Gray to know.

Lax as Harry is, one hesitates to saddle him with such an egregious contradiction. If it were worth while to bring him to reasonable consistency, one might reject the forty-five couplet as an arithmetical exercise of the transcriber, with his nose on the preceding line and his mind vacant of all other considerations. Then Harry might be taken to say that Blair and Gray were intimate with Wallace from his sixteenth year till he was out twenty-nine. If he was in his thirtieth year in 1305, he would have been born in 1275. If he killed Selby in 1291–92, he would have been in his seventeenth year, which is close to Harry's statement, and at Stirling Bridge he would have been in his twenty-third year.

If we put Harry out of court as an irresponsible romancer, then we are thrown back upon the elastic epithet juvenis of the chroniclers, and the date of Wallace's birth becomes movable according to the fancy of the reader. At twenty-two or twenty-three Wallace must undoubtedly have been a man of exceptional (or at any rate impressive) physique, commanding energy of mind, and magnetic enthusiasm. More than that, he must have been at least as experienced a soldier as any Scot in the army on the slope of Abbey Craig. There must be an accentuated meaning in the epithet juvenis. In fact there need be little hesitation in reconciling Harry with the chroniclers and with himself. Wallace may be taken to have been born in 1274 or 1275.

Wallace had certainly one brother, Malcolm, who was older than himself; possibly another brother, John; and perhaps two sisters. It is recorded in an extant letter, written on August 20, 1299, that at the meeting of Scots barons at Peebles on the previous day, Sir Malcolm Wallace and Sir David de Graham drew their knives on each other over a demand of the latter for the lands of Sir William Wallace, who was going out of the kingdom without leave. The accuracy of the writer almost conclusively bars the supposition that he could have blundered on the name Malcolm instead of John, as has been suggested. If this be so, it supports Wyntoun's statement that the 'elder brother enjoyed the heritage,' and negatives Harry's assertion that young Sir Malcolm was killed, with his father, at Loudon Hill in 1296—or rather in 1291. Bower mistakenly calls him Sir Andrew.

A Sir John Wallace was undoubtedly executed in London in 1307. The sanctimonious Langtoft gloats over the details of the execution, and says his head was 'raised with shouts near the head of his brother, William the Wicked,' on London Bridge. It has been doubted, on no very clear grounds, whether Sir John did not belong to the family of Riccarton. Harry mentions that Wallace, during his Guardianship, 'his brother's son put to his heritage'; but this is on the presupposition that Malcolm was slain at Loudon Hill; and Sir John could hardly have been young Sir Malcolm's son. Even Langtoft may for once be right.

For the sisters there is only the authority of Harry. He mentions Edward Little as Wallace's 'sister's son,' and Tom Halliday as 'sib sister's son to good Wallace.' If Harry be correct, these sisters must have been much older than Wallace.

The position of the Wallaces among the county gentry was by no means pretentious. 'I imagine them,' says the Marquess of Bute, 'in a position of easy fortune, with a certain number of free tenants paying rent in kind and divers services in peace, and, if need had been, in the event of war. And then with a surrounding of peasants, working at Elderslie itself and for their tenants feudally attached, paying no rent, and receiving no wages.'

As a boy, Wallace was almost certainly schooled in the elements of formal education, secular and religious, by the monks of the Abbey of Paisley, then 'the centre of religion and learning in the quasi-principality of the High Stewards, to which he belonged.' 'Taking it as a whole,' says the Marquess of Bute,

'I conceive that there can be no doubt that his mental culture was at least as great as would be that of a person in a corresponding position at the present day.... Sir William Wallace at least knew how to read and write three languages—namely, his own, and Latin and French; and it appears also that he knew Gaelic. He knew the ancient and modern history, and the common simpler mathematics and science of his own day.'

In his boyhood, his deep religious feeling must also have been powerfully fostered. The Abbey of Paisley was the parish church of his family. 'The community of Paisley,' says the Marquess of Bute, with great probability,

'was then in all the fervour of its first love, and it was there that William Wallace imbibed his consistent and unfading veneration for the Church and respect for her ministers.... It was as the sublime compositions of the ancient Hebrew poets alternately thundered and wailed through the Abbey Church of Paisley, that William Wallace contracted that livelong love for the Psalms which lasted until he died, with a priest holding the Psalter open, at his request, before his darkening eyes.'

There is probably but little stretch of fancy here, considering the natural disposition of the man.

The foundation of Wallace's acquirements must have been well and truly laid in his early youth. How much of his education was imparted to him at Paisley, it is quite impossible to say, with any approach to definiteness. Whatever he learned there, however, must have been powerfully reinforced by his association with an uncle, a brother of his father's, the comfortable priest of Dunipace, who is described by Harry as 'a man of great riches,' a 'mighty parson,' and 'a full kind man.' The precise period of Wallace's stay at Dunipace cannot be fixed; but he must have been well out of childhood, if it be true that the priest inculcated in his pupil's mind moral maxims compactly framed in Latin, and frequently drawn from the classical Latin authors. In particular, the good priest is credited with the noble purpose and achievement of instilling into Wallace's soul a passionate love of liberty, which is the key-note of his elevated character and his glorious career. The very formula employed to imprint the memorable injunction has been preserved to us through the centuries:

'Dico tibi verum, libertas optima rerum:
Nunquam servili sub nexu vivito, fili.'

'My son, I tell thee soothfastlie,
No gift is like to libertie;
Then never live in slaverie.'

Artificial as the Latin couplet may be deemed, it has become invested for ever with an interest peculiarly touching to all lovers of human freedom, and especially to the compatriots of Wallace.

At a still later period, according to Harry, Wallace was sent for further instruction to Dundee. The occasion of this was, in fact, the break-up of the Elderslie home. Harry intends the date as 1296, when 'Scotland was lost' after Dunbar; but he does not recognise that Scotland was lost in 1291, which seems likely to have been the true date of the episode. On June 11, 1291, the Scots Guardians surrendered the kingdom and the castles to Edward as over-lord; and on June 12, Edward, 'with the advice of the prelates and magnates of Scotland there present,' settled a general ordinance requiring 'homage and fealty to be made by all, both clerical and lay, who would have been bound to make it to a living King of Scotland.' Sir Malcolm Wallace, however, did not appear before Edward's deputies at Ayr, nor did he send an excuse; there is no evidence, indeed, to show that he ever made submission—worthy father of his heroic son! According to Harry, he retired to the Lennox, taking young Malcolm with him; while Sir Reginald Crawford, who bent to the storm as hereditary Sheriff of Ayr, took charge of Lady Wallace, his sister, and the boy William, and sent them for refuge to an uncle, a priest at Kilspindie in the Carse of Gowrie. Whether the priest was Sir Reginald's or Wallace's uncle is not clear; but since Harry describes him as 'an aged man,' he may be taken rather as Sir Reginald's uncle. Assuming Harry's connection of events, the flight to Kilspindie must have taken place in 1296 or 1291—preferably 1291, when Wallace was in his seventeenth year.

Sir Malcolm seems to have soon ventured back from the Lennox, if Harry is right in stating that shortly afterwards he was killed at Loudon Hill in a conflict with an English party under an officer named Fenwick. According to Harry, young Malcolm was slain with his father; which, as we have seen, is almost certainly a mistake. His desperate valour, as described by Harry, anticipates the Chevy Chace minstrel's picture of Widrington, who, 'when his legs were hewn in two, yet he kneeled and fought on his knee.' But it is curious to observe that the first edition of Harry's poem (1570), by the transposition of two lines (as compared with the existing MS.), assigns the description to Sir Malcolm the father; and no doubt this is right.

'His hough sinews they cuttèd in that press;
On knees he fought, and many English slew;
To him more fighters than enow there drew;
On either side with spears they bore him down;
And there they stabbed that good knight of renown.'

Meantime Wallace was living at Kilspindie, and proceeding with his studies at Dundee in some school connected with the Church. There he met John Blair, who subsequently became a Benedictine monk, but left the cloister to attend his friend as chaplain, to bear a hand in many a tough fight, or to conduct diplomatic negotiations, and who eventually wrote the biography that formed the basis of Harry's poem, probably in the retirement of Dunfermline Abbey. There, too, according to Harry, he met Duncan of Lorn, who figures in one of his early enterprises; Sir Niel Campbell of Lochawe; and probably others of his later trusty comrades.

The question arises why young Wallace was staying at Kilspindie and studying with the monks in Dundee when his father and his brother were so sore bested. He must have been a big fellow, well capable of wielding arms to purpose. It may be that his father judged that his own and his eldest son's lives were a sufficiently heavy stake, and that it was desirable that one of his sons at least should be near his wife, even in a place of comparative shelter. If it had been intended that William should rejoin his father and brother by and by, the early disaster at Loudon Hill would have rendered his presence in the West worse than futile. There may, indeed, have been another idea. There may have been an intention to dedicate him, a younger son, to the service of the Church. Harry indicates, at a late period of his career, some purpose of religious retirement 'to serve God and the Kirk'—a tendency that may readily connect itself with an early bent of mind.

The idea of making Wallace a priest, if it ever existed, was promptly dispelled by the force of circumstances. One day, Harry says, he was grossly insulted in Dundee by a young Englishman named Selby, a son of the 'Captain,' who was strolling about with several companions. Wallace restrained himself till Selby attempted to wrest his knife from him, whereupon he seized the aggressor by the collar and struck him dead on the spot. Defending himself knife in hand, he made for a house his uncle had used to frequent, and was quickly disguised by the lady of the house, who rigged him out in a dress of her own, and set him down with a 'rock' (distaff) to spin. He thus eluded his pursuers; and at night he escaped out of the town by some irregular way. The English authorities at once put the law in active motion in Dundee, and made it impossible for him to remain longer in such dangerous neighbourhood.

This episode, the very first of Harry's stories, has been overclouded with doubts. In deference to the scruples of those that cannot imagine Wallace as only at the end of his teens at Stirling Bridge, we have ventured to throw back the occurrence some five years. Who was Captain of Dundee in 1296–97 we do not know. Was Selby, then, the 'Captain' in 1291–92? The Captain of Dundee Castle from July 18, 1291, to November 18, 1292, was Sir Brian Fitz Alan. But Sir Brian was at the same time castellan of Forfar, and (from August 4) of Roxburgh and Jedburgh; and on June 13 he had also been appointed one of the Guardians, and he was (at any rate, by August 23) one of the three Justices. His hands must therefore have been very full of official business, and he could not be always in Dundee. It has accordingly been suggested that Selby might have been his deputy, or lieutenant, in Dundee—the acting 'Captain.' But he may, on the other hand, have been the Captain, not of the castle, but of the town. Or would it be extravagant to suspect that 'Selby' may be a popular degeneration and perversion of 'Fitz Alan'? The story, if accepted at all, probably dates in December 1291, or January 1291–92. Wallace would thus have sojourned at Kilspindie about half a year.

The experiences of this half-year may well have made a profound impression upon a youth of Wallace's sensitive temperament and martial spirit. Harry represents him, with dramatic truth at least, as brooding painfully over the death of his father (and brother), and as being stirred to uncontrollable resentment of the treatment of Scots within his personal observation. On Harry's statement, the desolation of his house, the exile of his mother, and the oppression of his countrymen, had already nerved his heart and hand to terrible reprisals—such reprisals as, apart from the controlling circumstances, would be justly reprobated as monstrous. Harry himself is consistently 'dispitfull and savage' against the Southron; yet one cannot but hesitate to ascribe to his bloodthirsty imagination the private deeds of revenge he attributes to young Wallace. In those hard days, the removal of an enemy did not touch the conscience as it does in modern civilised society, accustomed to peace and security, and informed with a developed sense of humanity; and the justification derived from intolerable oppression is, at any rate, a vastly more efficient salve in the actual case than it is in mere historical contemplation. At all events, Harry relates that young Wallace, on finding an Englishman alone, never hesitated to cut his throat or to stab him dead. 'Some disappeared, but none wist by what way.' The weak, maddened by tyranny, will do as they may; there is ample testimony to the exacerbation of Scottish feeling at this period; and, while we may deplore, we need not be so childishly unhistorical as to affect not to understand. The iron of English oppression had already entered deep into the soul of Wallace.

About eighteen, then, young Wallace bore the brand of an outlaw for the shedding of English blood in peculiarly daring circumstances. The family council at Kilspindie decided that he and his mother had better travel westward again. They assumed the disguise of pilgrims to St. Margaret's shrine at Dunfermline. At Dunipace, they resisted the urgent invitation of the priest to stay till better times; and thence they made straight to Elderslie. Sir Reginald Crawford would have had the outlawry annulled, but Wallace was obdurate and irreconcilable. There were many Englishmen in the neighbourhood; and Sir Reginald, to get his spirited nephew out of the way of harm and of temptation, sent him to Sir Richard Wallace at Riccarton. There they kept him quiet and safe for a time—possibly till the English occupation of 1296.

At a Christmas time a few years later, when Wallace (according to Harry) was closely engaged in the far west—Harry intends 1297, but he cannot be right—there came to him the heavy tidings of the death of his mother. She is said to have been compelled to leave Elderslie once more, and to have returned on pilgrimage to Dunfermline, to seek at the holy shrine of St. Margaret the rest denied her in her own home. Unable personally to render her the last offices of affection, Wallace despatched John Blair and the sturdy Jop to represent him on the mournful occasion. The bitterness of his heart is expressed by Harry in two pregnant lines:

'Better him thought that it had happened so;
No Southron should her put to other woe.'

Still more distressful was the fate of Wallace's wife, Marion Bradfute, the heiress of Lamington. Wyntoun calls her his 'leman'—a designation not necessarily contradictory, but at least ambiguous. Harry's account agrees with Wyntoun's very closely, yet he would seem to have had some other narrative before him, and possibly Wyntoun and Harry may have drawn mainly upon a common predecessor. However this may be, Harry, with inflexible allegiance to his hero, expressly affirms: 'Mine author says she was his rightwise wife.' The point really needs no consideration.

Harry lavishes a wealth of tender emotion over the loves of Wallace and Marion Bradfute, and his sympathetic feeling elevates him to genuine poetic expression, often touched with extreme delicacy. Marion lived at Lanark, 'a maiden mild' of eighteen. Her father, Sir Hugh de Bradfute, and her eldest brother, had been slain by Hazelrig, the Sheriff of Lanark; her mother, too, was dead; and such peace as she enjoyed was dependent on her having 'purchased King Edward's protection,' although that did not secure her from the offensive attentions of his local minions.

'Amiable and benign she was, and wise,
Courteous and sweet, fulfillèd of gentrice,
Her tongue well ruled, her face right fresh and fair.
Withal she was a maid of virtue rare:
Humbly her led, and purchased a good name,
And kept herself with every wight from blame.
True rightwise folk great favour did her lend.'

When Wallace first saw her, Hazelrig had just broached a proposal of marriage between her and his son. Harry dwells strongly on the division of Wallace's mind between the claims of war and the urgency of love; and he tells how the faithful Kerly's pointed advice broke down his hesitations. The inevitable conflict with Hazelrig arose. The Sheriff's emissaries fastened a quarrel on Wallace. Taken at disadvantage, he was compelled to retreat to his house. His wife, having admitted him and his men, and let them out by another way, held the pursuers in parley till his escape was assured. Whether then, or immediately after (on Hazelrig's return to town), she paid for her courageous fidelity with her life. Wallace, with a handful of men, came upon Hazelrig at dead of night, and slew him in his bedroom with his own hand. The Lanark rising and the death of the Sheriff certainly took place in May 1297.

Harry further asserts that a daughter was born to Wallace and his wife, that she married a squire named Shaw, and that 'right goodly men came of this lady young.' The edition of 1594 at this point inserts a few lines not found in the existing MS. stating that this daughter of Wallace's married a squire of 'Balliol's blood,' and that

'their heirs by line succeeded right
To Lamington and other lands of worth.'

This points to an alleged second marriage with Sir William Baillie of Hoprig. To this allegation it is by no means a conclusive answer that Sir William Baillie, second of Hoprig, as son-in-law of Sir William Seton, obtained a charter of 'Lambiston' barony as late as 1368.

According to Harry's narrative, Wallace found some of his most active and trustworthy allies, especially in his earlier career, among his own relatives. This is at least extremely probable. Sir Richard Wallace of Riccarton gives him shelter and provision, and sends him his three sons, of whom Adam, the eldest, distinguishes himself conspicuously. The priests of Dunipace and Kilspindie we have already met. Wallace of Auchincruive, 'his cousin,' provides supplies for the outlaw of Laglane Wood and his single 'child.' Edward Little is Wallace's 'sister's son.' Tom Halliday, too, is Wallace's 'nephew'—his 'sib sister's son'; and Halliday's eldest daughter is the wife of Wallace's great lieutenant, Sir John the Graham; while his second daughter is the wife of Johnstone, 'a man of good degree,' installed as castellan of Lochmaben, the first castle that Wallace attempted to hold permanently. Young Auchinleck of Gilbank becomes Wallace's 'eyme' or 'uncle,' by marriage. Kirkpatrick is 'of kin,' and to 'Wallace' mother near.' And Kneland (or Cleland) and William Crawford are both designated his 'cousins'; Kneland, indeed, his 'near cousin.' The family tree must have thrown out shoots in many directions, and more likely than not Harry may be substantially right.

Wallace, as we have seen, and as the indictment on his trial stated, was a Scotsman born and bred. His ancestors on both sides, whether Keltic, Norman, or Saxon, had been domiciled in Scotland for more than a century, and had entered into the feeling and thought of the mass of the Scots population. Wallace himself, possibly with a view to the Church, had received as good an education as the times afforded. Whether or not the good priest of Dunipace inculcated in his opening mind the inestimable value of liberty, he was aroused, while yet 'in his tender age,' to bitter reprisals on the oppressors of his family and of his countrymen. A younger son, without rank or fortune or the experience of age, he girded on his sword 'both sharp and long,' and appealed to the justice of Heaven. Scorning intercession for relief of his outlawry, he betook himself to the fastnesses of his country, resolute to right his wrongs in the only way open to him, and filled with undying hatred to the tyrants of his native land.

[CHAPTER III]
Guerrilla Warfare

'Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem.'—

Enn. ap. Cic. Off. i. 24, 84.

'Now, for our consciences, the arms are fair,
When the intent of bearing them is just.'—

Shakespeare, Henry IV., Part i., v. 2.

'Thryldome is weill wer than deid.'—

Barbour, The Bruce, i. 269.

Apart from the Hazelrig and Ormsby episodes, the chroniclers plant Wallace at Stirling Bridge almost as if he had just started from the ground, or come down from the clouds, ready to command an army in the field. Yet they call him brigand, public robber, cut-throat, and other suchlike names, strangely inadequate as explanation of his command of the Scots against a mighty English host. Wallace's leadership really has to be accounted for on some more rational principle.

Now, Harry is the main guide up to the Hazelrig episode; and Harry has been grievously discredited. As the criticism of his poem stands, each reader must be left free to make his own deductions; but at least it may be claimed for Harry that each episode be judged on its merits, not by the jeers of Lord Hailes or an echo thereof. In any case, it is beyond all question that Wallace must have gone through some such experience as Harry details. Stirling Bridge was not an historical miracle.

OCCASIONAL EARLY ADVENTURES.

It might be possible to refer some of the earlier exploits of Wallace, as recorded by Harry, to 1292, without much more violence than is involved in the like reference of the Selby episode. But there is no similar necessity. They all imply the presence of Sir Henry de Percy in the Ayr district, and Percy was appointed Warden of Galloway and Ayr and Castellan of Ayr, Wigton, Cruggelton, and Buittle on September 8, 1296, though he did not reach his post till well into October. It is excess of stringency to bind Harry definitely to particular months.

What Wallace had been doing in the gap between 1292 and 1296 remains unknown. It seems hopeless to connect him in any way with the events of March and April 1296, at Berwick and Dunbar; and it is likely enough that Sir Richard Wallace sedulously kept him out of mischief and danger, at Riccarton, till the fresh occupation of Galloway and Ayr by the English in October 1296. On the assumption, however, of his marriage with Marion Bradfute, which cannot easily be placed later than the first months of 1296, there must have been considerable intermissions of his restraint. Sir Reginald Crawford had duly submitted to Edward, who confirmed him in the Sheriffdom of Ayr on May 14 at Roxburgh.

The fresh involvement of Wallace with the English is ascribed by Harry to an accidental conflict with five men of Percy's train at the Water of Irvine. Wallace was fishing as Percy passed, and the men proceeded to appropriate his takings. He killed three of the five. Sir Richard was distracted. Plainly, Wallace could not remain longer at Riccarton. Taking a youth as his sole attendant, he rode straight to Wallace of Auchincruive, and sought shelter in Laglane Wood, where his relative secretly supplied him with necessaries.

Wallace, however, chafed in inaction. He would see what was doing in Ayr. At the market-cross he fell in with a champion, who was offering English soldiers and others a stroke on his back with a rough bucket-pole for a groat. Wallace gave him three groats, delivered his stroke, and broke the man's backbone. The English at once attacked him, and he had to slay five of them before he could escape to his horse, which he had left with his man at the edge of the wood. Further pursuit was in vain.

This affair having blown over, Wallace would again visit Ayr. It was market-day. Sir Reginald's servant had bought fish, when Percy's steward insultingly demanded them; and on Wallace's interposing a gentle remonstrance, the steward in choler struck him with his hunting-staff. Wallace instantly collared him, and stabbed him to the heart: 'caterer thereafter, sure, he was no more.' Some fourscore men-at-arms had been told off to keep order on market-day, and Wallace was at once assailed. After a fierce struggle, with many casualties, he was borne down and taken prisoner—'to pine him more' than forthright death. Cast into an ugsome cell, and badly fed, he fell very ill; and when the gaoler was sent down to bring him up for judgment, he found his prisoner apparently dead, and so reported. In the result, Wallace's body was tossed over the wall into 'a draff midden,' presumably lifeless. Hearing of this, his old nurse, who lived in the New Town of Ayr, begged leave to take the body away for burial; and, her request being contemptuously granted, she had it carried to her house. Her tendance revived Wallace, but she kept up the outward pretence that he was dead. It argues a good nurse and a good constitution if he made recovery within the limits of time indicated by Harry.

At this period the famous Thomas the Rimer happened to be on a visit at the neighbouring monastery of Faile (St. Mary's). He felt deep concern for Wallace's fate. The 'Minister' of the house despatched a messenger to ascertain the truth privately. On hearing that Wallace was really alive,

'Then Thomas said: "For sooth, ere he decease,
Shall many thousands in the field make end.
From Scotland he shall forth the Southron send,
And Scotland thrice he shall bring to the peace.
So good of hand again shall ne'er be kenned."'

A similar prophecy is mentioned by Harry as lying heavy on the mind of Percy—a prophecy that a Wallace should turn the English out of Scotland. 'Wise men,' said Percy, 'the sooth by his escape may see.' The same view, according to Harry, took a strong hold of the popular mind.

Sending his benefactress and her family to his mother at Elderslie, Wallace got hold of a rusty sword, and set out for Riccarton. On the way he encountered an English squire named Longcastell (Lancaster), with two men, who insisted on taking him to Ayr. Wallace pleaded to be let alone, for he was sick. Longcastell pronounced him a sturdy knave, and drew his sword. Wallace at once struck him dead with his rusty weapon, and then killed the two followers. Taking the spoils, he hurried to Riccarton. There came Sir Reginald and Wallace's mother and many friends, and great was the rejoicing.

GUERRILLA IN THE WEST.

Wallace, however, was eager to avenge him on his enemies. He would not rest at Riccarton. Accordingly, he was furnished forth, and was accompanied by several lads of spirit, his relatives and friends. Adam Wallace, Sir Richard's eldest son, now eighteen, Robert Boyd, Kneland, 'near cousin to Wallace,' Edward Little, 'his sister's son,' and Gray and Kerly, with some attendants, bound them to ride with him to Mauchline Moor. Learning there that an English convoy from Carlisle to Ayr was approaching, Wallace rode to Loudon Hill and lay in wait. The convoy came in sight. It was conducted by Fenwick, the officer that had commanded the English in the recent combat here, when Wallace's father was slain. This concurrence of circumstances exalted Wallace's spirit, and steeled his mind to a resolute revenge. He had but 50 men against 180; and his men fought on foot. By throwing up a rough dyke of stones, he had narrowed the approach of the harnessed English horse, whose riders fancied they had no more to do than to trample their enemies down. Wallace promptly disabused their minds of that time-honoured superciliousness. His men plied them first with spears and then with swords, keeping close order, and defying the horsemen's efforts to scatter them. Wallace himself in fury struck Fenwick from his horse, Boyd giving the finishing blow; and a hundred of the English lay dead on the field. The superstition of the invincibility of armed horse by footmen was exploded by Wallace's tactics and fierce resolution. The victors carried off Percy's convoy to the depths of the forest of Clydesdale, whence they freely distributed 'stuff and horses' privately to friendly neighbours. The success of this daring effort tended to corroborate the prophecy of True Thomas and spread the fame of Wallace.

Wallace's Loudon Hill exploit came under the cognisance of Percy in council at Glasgow. Sir Reginald was taken bound for the culprit's good behaviour, and, in order to shield the Sheriff, Wallace's comrades induced him to consent to a peace for ten months—a peace limited to Percy's jurisdiction. Presently Wallace would yet again see Ayr, and went to Ayr with fifteen men. Invited by an English buckler-player to try his sword, Wallace cut through buckler, hand, and brain down to the shoulders. At once a fight ensued, at great odds, and the Scots had to retire, Wallace protecting the rear. Harry says 29 out of 120 English, including three of Percy's near kin, were slain. Percy, however, recognised that Wallace was not the aggressor, and contented himself with binding Sir Reginald to keep him from market-town and fair and like resorts. So for a week or two Wallace stayed at Crosby.

Another Council was now summoned at Glasgow, 'to statute the country.' Sir Reginald, as Sheriff, obeyed the summons, taking Wallace with him. Wallace rode ahead, overtaking the Sheriff's baggage, which soon came up on Percy's. Percy's horse was tired, and Percy's conductor insolently appropriated Sir Reginald's fresher beast, despite Wallace's remonstrance. 'Reason him ruled,' and he returned to Sir Reginald, who took it very calmly. Wallace, however, fired up, and swore that, peace or no peace, please the Sheriff or otherwise, he would exact amends for the wrong. Spurring forward again in high dudgeon, with Gray and Kerly by his side, he quickly overtook Percy's baggage east of Cathcart, slew the five attendants, and took the spoil. Then said Wallace, 'At some strength would I be.'

The Council promptly outlawed Wallace, and made Sir Reginald swear to hold no friendly communication with him without leave. Meantime Wallace, with his two men, had passed to the Lennox. Harry sends him to Earl Malcolm, who proposed to make him 'master of his household.' The Earl had, in fact, already sworn fealty to Edward, not once, but twice (March 14 and August 28), though Harry says, 'he had not then made band'; but that consideration would be open to easy interpretation in the remote fastnesses of Dumbartonshire. In any case, Wallace is said to have declined the offer, his mind being set upon wreaking revenge on the English. He was joined by about sixty men, some of them Irish exiles, and all of them pretty rough. Two of them must be signalised: Fawdon, a big dour fellow; and Steven of Ireland, a most valuable recruit, who soon became a great friend of Kerly's.

'Wallace received what man would come him till;
The bodily oath they made him with good will
Before the Earl, all with a good accord,
And him received as captain and their lord.'

Gray and Kerly, who had been with him at Loudon Hill, he instructed to keep near his person, knowing them 'right hardy, wise, and true.' The field of action was closed against him in the west. He would therefore strike to the north.

GUERRILLA IN THE NORTH.

With his sixty men, Wallace started through the Lennox. He was well provided from the spoil of Percy's baggage, and he liberally distributed the good Earl's gifts among his followers. The first exploit of the campaign was the capture of the peel of Gargunnock, a little west of Stirling. Wallace sent two spies at midnight to find out how the place was defended; and their report was that everything betokened heedlessness—sentry asleep, bridge down, labourers going in without question. Hurrying up his men with due precaution, Wallace entered without hindrance. The peel door he found guarded with a stubborn bar, which, to the marvel of his men, he wrenched out with his hands, bringing three yards' breadth of the wall with it. Next moment, he burst in the door with his foot. The watchman, wakened up suddenly, struck at him with 'a felon staff of steel,' which Wallace wrested out of his hands and brained him with. The captain, Thirlwall, with the aroused garrison at his heels, came forward, only to be battered to death with the same steel mace. Not a single fighting-man—and there were twenty-two of them—was spared; but women and children, according to Wallace's invariable rule, were protected. Having gathered the spoils, Wallace and his men hastened on their way.

Crossing the Forth, they headed north to the Teith, where Wallace gave Kerly custody of the useful mace of steel; and, having passed the Teith, they held on, by one 'strength' and another, to Strathearn, religiously slaying every Englishman they fell in with. At Blackford, for instance, they encountered five riding to Doune, and killed and spoiled them, and put the bodies 'out of sight.' They then crossed the Earn, and made for Methven Wood, where they found 'a land of great abundance.'

Wallace, however, did not enjoy the fat of the forest in idleness. He longed to see St. Johnston. Appointing Steven of Ireland, who had done good service as guide after Gargunnock, to command in his absence, Wallace took seven men and fared to the town. 'What is your name?' inquired the provost (mayor). 'Will Malcolmson,' replied Wallace, 'from Ettrick Forest; and I want to find a better dwelling in this north land.' The provost explained his inquiry by reciting the rumours that were rife about Wallace, the outlaw. 'I hear speak of that man,' said Wallace, 'but tidings of him can I tell you none.' Sir Gerard Heron was captain, and 'under-captain' was Sir John Butler, son of Sir James Butler of Kinclaven, who then happened to be in St. Johnston. Harry recounts Wallace's nightly regrets that he had not force enough to take the town. He discovered, however, the strength and distribution of the enemy in these parts; and, having learnt when Sir James Butler was to return to Kinclaven, he at once set out again for Methven Wood, where the blast of his well-known horn quickly assembled his men.

Advancing towards Kinclaven, on the right bank of the Tay a little above the junction of the Isla, Wallace ambushed his men near the castle in a thickly-wooded hollow. In the early afternoon his scouts brought him the news that three fore-riders had passed, but he did not move till Butler and his train came up so as to make sure of their exact strength. There were ninety good men in harness on horseback. When Wallace showed himself, these warriors contemptuously imagined they could simply ride down him and his footmen, but they were promptly taught the lesson of Loudon Hill. Wallace and his men stood shoulder to shoulder, and plied their swords with dire effect. Wallace himself was conspicuous where his brand was most needed, and at length he reached Sir James Butler, and clove him to the teeth. Steven of Ireland and Kerly 'with his good staff of steel' especially distinguished themselves. Three score of Butler's men were slain, and the remnant fled to the castle, hotly pursued by the Scots. The bridge was lowered and the gates cast open to the fugitives; but Wallace followed so fast that he got command of the gate, and his men entered with the flying enemy. Not a fighting-man was left alive in the place; only Lady Butler and her women, two priests, and the children were spared. Only five Scots were killed. Having plundered, dismantled, and burnt the castle, Wallace drew off into Shortwood Shaw.

When the country folk, seeing the smoke, hastened to Kinclaven Castle, they found 'but walls and stone.' Lady Butler herself carried the news to St. Johnston. At once Sir Gerard Heron ordered 1000 men 'harnessed on horse into their armour clear,' to pursue Wallace. The force was disposed in six equal companies, five to surround the wood; the sixth, led by Sir John Butler, to make the direct attack. Wallace had taken up a strong position, which he fortified by cross bars of trees except on one side, whence he could issue to the open ground. This 'strength,' he determined, must be held to the last. Butler had 140 archers, said to be Lancashire men, with 80 spears in support. Wallace had only 20 archers, and 'few of them were sikker of archery'; they were more familiar with spear and sword. Wallace himself had a bow of Ulysses: 'no man was there that Wallace' bow might draw.' He was short of arrows, however; for, when he had shot fifteen, his stock was exhausted. The English, on the other hand, were plentifully supplied. The odds were overwhelmingly in their favour. Wallace did his utmost to shelter his men, 'and cast all ways to save them from the death.' With his own hand he dealt death to many of the foe in sudden sallies. Here he had a very narrow escape. Observing his tactics, an English archer lay in wait for him, and shot him

'Under the chin, through a collar of steel,
On the left side, and hurt his neck some deal.'

It is curious to note that the alleged French description of Wallace preserved by Harry mentions 'a wen' or scar in this very spot. Wallace instantly made for his assailant at all hazards, and killed him in sight of friends and foes.

In the course of the afternoon the English were reinforced by the arrival of Sir William de Loraine from Gowrie with 300 men to avenge the death of his uncle, Sir James Butler. 'Here is no choice,' said Wallace, 'but either do or die.' A combined assault was made on his position by Butler and Loraine; and he had only 50 to withstand 500. The battle raged fiercely, and in spite of his most arduous efforts with his 'burly brand,' Wallace was compelled to evacuate and to seek shelter in the thickest part of the wood. At last he cut his way through Butler's company, and established himself in another 'strength.' The English stuck close to him, however. In the mêlée, he struck hard at Butler, who was saved from death by the interposition of the bough of a tree, which Wallace brought down upon him. By this time Loraine had come up, and Wallace, making straight at him, cut him down, but did not regain the 'strength' without a desperate struggle.

'The worthy Scots right nobly did that day
About Wallace, till he was won away.'

Still Wallace held his 'strength.' Sir Gerard Heron, however, on hearing of the death of Loraine, moved all his troops simultaneously against the position; whereupon Wallace and his men issued at the north side of the wood in retreat, 'thanking great God' that they got off on such terms. The Scots had lost seven men killed; the English, 120.

Wallace took refuge in Cargill Wood. The English, deeming it fruitless to pursue him, set about seeking where the plunder of Kinclaven had been deposited in the forest; but they found nothing except Sir James's horse. They then returned to St. Johnston, more dispirited than elated. The second night, the Scots returned cautiously to Shortwood Shaw, and carried away the hidden spoils. By sunrise they reached Methven Wood, and three days afterwards they established themselves in a strength in Elcho Park. They had eluded the vigilance of their enemies.

Thanks to the temerity of Wallace, however, they were soon discovered. According to Harry, he returned to St. Johnston in the disguise of a priest, in prosecution of an amour commenced on his first visit. He was recognised and watched; and the woman is said to have disclosed the date of the next appointment. He was accordingly waylaid; but, on her confession, he threw aside his own disguise and arrayed himself in her dress, and, dissembling his countenance and his voice, passed safely out at the gate. As he increased his pace, two of the guards, thinking him 'a stalwart quean,' hastened after him. In a few minutes they lay dead on the South Inch, and Wallace was hurrying to Elcho Park. This story of Harry's is unusually clumsy, or the eyes of the guards must have been peculiarly vacant.

The two men being found slain on the South Inch, Sir Gerard Heron set out in pursuit of Wallace with 600 men. He took with him also a sleuth-hound of the best Border breed. Heron with half his force surrounded the wood where Wallace was posted, and Butler made the attack with the rest, 300 against 40. In the first ruthless onset, the Scots killed forty, but lost fifteen. Finding their ground untenable, they cut their way through the enemy to the banks of the Tay, intending to cross; but the water was deep, and one-half of them could not swim. They had no alternative, therefore, but to face Butler's men again; and after a severe struggle, in which Steven and Kerly, as well as Wallace, performed doughty deeds, they again cut through the English, killing sixty and losing nine. Already Wallace had lost more than half his men, twenty-four out of forty, and sixteen was a mere handful against hundreds. As Butler was re-forming his men, Wallace took the opportunity to dash through between him and Heron, and made for Gask Wood.

The approach of night was in his favour. But the way was uphill and rough, and when they were yet east of Dupplin, a considerable distance from the anticipated shelter, Fawdon broke down, and would not be persuaded to hurry on. Having exhausted argument and entreaty, Wallace in anger struck off his head. Harry justifies the act. It might stop the sleuth-hound. Fawdon was suspected of treachery; he was 'right stark' and had gone but a short distance. If he was false, he would join the enemy; if he was true, the enemy would kill him. 'Might he do aught but lose him as it was?' On the alleged facts, probably there is little more to be said. The succeeding narrative shows plainly enough that Wallace felt himself in a most painful dilemma.

While Wallace hastened forward, Steven and Kerly stayed behind in a bushy hollow till Heron came up, and then cautiously mixed with the English as they were speculating on Fawdon's fate. The hound had stopped, and as Heron was inspecting Fawdon, Kerly suddenly struck him dead. Kerly and Steven at once dashed off towards the Earn. Butler despatched an escort with Heron's body to St. Johnston, and pushed on to Dalreoch. Meantime Wallace had occupied Gask Hall—Baroness Nairne's 'Bonny Gascon Ha''—

'an unco tow'r, sae stern an auld'—

with his remnant of fourteen, and was painfully anxious about Steven and Kerly, and vexed about the death of Fawdon. In the circumstances of his mental excitement and bodily fatigue, the story of the apparition of Fawdon, which Harry works up so elaborately, finds a very natural basis. Whether or not Wallace sent out his men in relays to discover the meaning of the strange horn-blowing, and so forth, and then sallied out alone under the urgency of the apparition, he appears to have now lost all touch with his men.

Passing along Earn side all alone, Wallace fell in with Sir John Butler, who was patrolling the fords. Butler, suspecting his explanation of his business, drew upon him; whereupon Wallace killed him, seized his horse, and rode away, pursued hotly by the English. In the running fight he killed some twenty of them; but at Blackford his horse broke down, and he was obliged to take to the heather on foot. Struggling to the Forth, he swam the cold river and hastened to the Torwood, where he got shelter in a widow's hut. Sending out messengers to repass the way he came and get news of his men, he retired to a deep thicket to rest, watched by two of the widow's sons, while a third went to apprise the priest of Dunipace of his arrival.

The priest came. Wallace was still suffering severely from fatigue as well as excitement.

'What I have had in war before this day—
Prison and pain—to this night was but play....
I moan far more the losing of my men
Than for myself, had I ten times such pain.'

The priest, however ardent for freedom in the abstract, could not but recognise the hopelessness of Wallace's position. His men were lost; more would not rise with him in their place; it was useless for him to throw away his life. Let him seek honourable terms with Edward. The old man may have been overpowered by Wallace's disastrous condition; he may have been testing his nephew's mettle.

'"Uncle," said Wallace, "of such words no more.
This is but eking of my trouble sore.
Better I like to see the Southron dee
Than land or gold that they can give to me.
Believe right well, from war I will not cease
Till time that I bring Scotland into peace,
Or die therefor: that plainly understand."'

Such was the indomitable resolution of Wallace in these hopeless circumstances. Presently he was cheered by the arrival of Steven and Kerly, who were overjoyed to find him alive. 'For perfect joy they wept with all their een.' Wallace was eager to move. The widow gave him 'part of silver bright' and two of her sons. She would have given the third but that he was too young. The priest provided Wallace with horses and outfit; but 'wae he was his mind was all in war.' And so Wallace passed on to Dundaff Moor. Though the northern campaign had closed with the annihilation of his force, it had spread the rumour and inflamed the spirit of resistance.

THE CAPTURE OF LOCHMABEN

Wallace with his four followers rode to Dundaff, a hilly tract in Stirlingshire. The lord of Dundaff, according to Harry, was Sir John the Graham, 'an aged knight,' who paid tribute for a quiet life. Abercrombie, however, following Sympson, says he belonged not to the Dundaff, but to the Abercorn family; and, on the strength of a charter in the possession of the Duke of Montrose, he states that Dundaff was then held by Sir David de Graham. A Sir David de Graham, brother of the gallant Sir Patrick, was taken prisoner at Dunbar, and relegated to St. Briavell's Castle. Anyhow, this knight of Dundaff had a son, also named Sir John, 'both wise, worthy, and wight,' and

'On a broad shield his father gart him swear
He would be true to Wallace in all thing,
And he to him while life might in them ryng (reign).'

Young Sir John prepared to ride with Wallace, but Wallace would not take him then.

'A plain part yet I will not take on me.
I have lost men through my o'er-reckless deed:
A burnt child will the fire more sorely dread.'

He would try to raise his friends in Clydesdale, and give Sir John notice. Sir John eventually became his most illustrious lieutenant.

So Wallace passed on to Bothwell Moor, to one Crawford, no doubt a relative; and next day he went to Gilbank, which was held on tribute by Auchinleck, a youth of nineteen, closely related to him by marriage. Here he is said to have remained over Christmas. The English in these parts had heard of his doings in the north, but he had disappeared in Strathearn, and so went out of their minds. Wallace, though lying quiet, was not inactive. He despatched the trusty Kerly to Sir Reginald, Boyd, Blair, and Adam of Riccarton. Blair at once visited him. From all his friends reinforcements poured into his exchequer.

'All true Scots then great favour to him gave:
What good they had he needed not to crave.'

Starting from Gilbank after Christmas, Wallace with his four men rode to Corheid in Annandale. Here he was joined by Tom Halliday and Edward Little, who were delighted to find that there was no truth in the report that he had been slain in Strathearn. Wallace was now sixteen. He longed to see Lochmaben town. So he set out with Halliday, Edward, and Kerly, leaving the rest in the Knock Wood. While they were hearing mass, Clifford, Percy's nephew, with four men, came to their hostelry and spitefully cut off the tails of their horses. Wallace killed them all. The English quickly pursued, about 150 strong. Wallace reached his men in the Knock Wood, but his horses were failing through loss of blood, and he was caught up before gaining Corheid. Returning desperately, he killed fifteen of the foremost, and compelled the survivors to fall back on the main body, but did not pursue, Halliday having descried some 200 in ambush. The English again pressed the Scots retreat. Wallace cut down the redoubtable Sir Hugh de Morland, and, mounting Morland's 'courser wight,' again compelled the advanced guard to retire with the loss of twenty men. Sir John de Graystock, the English leader, was furious. Meantime Wallace hurried on, himself and Halliday stoutly guarding the rear.

Near Queensberry Wallace was happily reinforced by Sir John the Graham with thirty men, and by Kirkpatrick of Torthorwald, who had been holding out in Eskdale Wood, with twenty men. The Scots thereupon charged through the English, scattering them in flight; but 100 held together, and Wallace, with brusque directness, recalled Sir John and ordered him to break up this body. The rout was complete, and at the Knock Head Sir John killed Graystock. The valour of Sir John, Kirkpatrick, and Halliday had been conspicuous. Harry remarks a delicate courtesy of Wallace's in apologising to Sir John for the brusqueness of his order in the heat of the pursuit; and no less generous was Sir John's answer. In this engagement the Scots did not lose a single man!

The victorious Scots now held a council, and unanimously adopted Wallace's proposal to take Lochmaben Castle, the seat of the Bruce. The possession of Lochmaben would establish a strong footing against the English; and perhaps they might also link with it Carlaverock Castle, if this could be wrested from Sir Herbert de Maxwell. In the dusk of the evening, Halliday, taking with him John Watson, both of them having special local knowledge, rode to the gate. The porter, who knew Watson well, unsuspiciously opened the gate, on his information that the captain was coming, and was instantly killed by Halliday, Watson taking his keys. Wallace then came up and entered, finding only women and a couple of men-servants. The women he spared, but the men he killed. As the Knock Head fugitives returned, Watson let them in, and Wallace's men immediately slew them. 'No man left there that was of England born.' Johnstone, the husband of Halliday's second daughter—probably the Johnstone of Eskdale mentioned later by Harry—was made captain. Lochmaben was thus the first castle that Wallace attempted to hold.

The short campaign in Annandale was over. Halliday settled down again in the Corhall, and Kirkpatrick returned to Eskdale Wood. Wallace and Sir John, with forty men, passed north into Lanarkshire, and having captured and dismantled Crawford Castle, proceeded straight to Dundaff.

* * * * *

The short and sharp campaigns of the west and the north—whether as detailed by Harry or not—had placed Wallace before his countrymen as the foremost champion of the liberties of Scotland.

[CHAPTER IV]
The Deliverance of Scotland

'Our power for to knaw,
We will tak feild, and wp our baner rais
Off rycht Scotland, in contrar off our fais.
We will no mar now ws in covert hid;
Power till ws will sembill on ilk syd.'

Harry, xi. 702–6.

'The rycht is ouris, we suld mor ardent be;
I think to freith this land, or ellis de.'

Harry, ix. 821–2.

'The Inglis men owt of owre land
He gert be put wyth stalwart hand.'

Wyntoun, viii. 13, 127–8.

Leaving Dundaff, Wallace proceeded, in April 1297, to Lanark, attended by nine men. He joined his wife in a house just outside the gate, and here Sir John the Graham came to him, with fifteen followers. Sir William de Hazelrig,[1] the Sheriff, the oppressor of his wife's family, and Sir Robert Thorn, presumably the Captain, soon devised a plan for taking him at disadvantage. As Wallace was returning from mass one May morning with his companions, not in armour, but pranked out in the civilian 'goodly green' of the season, he was ostentatiously insulted by an English soldier—'the starkest man that Hazelrig then knew.' He tried to get away without a disturbance; but the arrival of Thorn and Hazelrig with some 200 men in harness at once precipitated a conflict. The odds were overwhelming, and the Scots retired through the gate, Wallace and Sir John doughtily defending the rear. Reaching Wallace's house, they were let in by his wife, and passed out by a back door, while she held the enemy in parley. They at once sought the shelter of Cartland Crags.

[1] Bower calls him William de Heslope (Hislop). The indictment of Wallace has William de Hesebregg (Hazelrig); the b apparently a clerical blunder for l. Mr. Joseph Bain (Cal. ii. p. xxvii.) suggests Andrew de Livingstone, not convincingly. Livingstone preceded Hazelrig.

According to Harry, the English, enraged at being baffled, put Wallace's wife to death; but Harry professes himself unable to state the circumstances. Wyntoun, whose account is extremely similar to Harry's, says the Sheriff came to Lanark after the disturbance, and then caused her to be put to death. He adds that Wallace secretly, but helplessly, beheld her execution; an absolutely incredible assertion. Harry's version is certainly nearer the facts. The English had killed Wallace's father; they had persecuted his mother; now they had inhumanly murdered his wife. The cup was running over.

The distress of Wallace and his friends is finely depicted by Harry. It inflamed them to a desperate and exemplary revenge. Reinforced by Auchinleck with ten men, Wallace and his party entered Lanark at night by different gates in twos and threes, without exciting remark. Wallace made for Hazelrig; Sir John, for Thorn. Dashing in the door with his foot, Wallace found Hazelrig in his bedroom, and slew him on the spot, while Auchinleck, gave himself the satisfaction of 'making sikkar' with three thrusts of his knife. Young Hazelrig, rushing to the aid of his father, was also instantly slain. Meantime Sir John had burnt Thorn in his house.

Wallace drew off to Clydesdale for aid. His terrible wrongs and his signal revenge brought him troops of friends, and the hopes of patriotic Scotsmen rose high. Sir John the Graham and Auchinleck were at his side. Adam of Riccarton, Sir John of Tynto, Robert Boyd, and Crawford (not Sir Reginald, who was in England), hastened to him. From Kyle and Cunningham came 1000 horse. Presently Wallace found himself at the head of 3000 'likely men of war,' besides many footmen, who 'wanted horse and gear.'

One notable recruit deserves especial mention—Gilbert de Grimsby, whom Wallace's men rechristened Jop. Jop was a man 'of great stature,' and already 'some part grey.' He was a Riccarton man by birth, and had travelled far in Edward's service as 'a pursuivant in war,' though, Harry says, he consistently refused to bear arms. No doubt he was the 'Gilbert de Grimmesby' that carried the sacred banner of St. John of Beverley in Edward's progress through Scotland after Dunbar, a distinguished service for which Edward on October 13, 1296, directed Warenne to find him a living worth about 20 marks or pounds a year.

The news of the Lanark affray having reached Edward, Harry marches up to Biggar an 'awful host' of 60,000 men under the 'awful king' Edward, and scatters it like chaff before Wallace, killing thousands, a fabulous number of the slain being near kinsmen of the King. But Edward was certainly in England at the time, busily struggling with adversity in his preparations 'to cross seas' to Flanders. He had, indeed, one eye on the Scots. In the beginning of May he was having his 'engines' overhauled at Carlisle; on May 24 he addressed a circular order to his leading liegemen in Scotland to hear personally from certain high officers of 'certain matters he had much at heart' in view of his intended departure to Flanders; and through May and June he received the oaths of several Scots barons to serve him 'in Scotland against the King of France.' But, so far as authentic documents show, those preparations led elsewhere, not to Biggar. As there exists no historical record of this Biggar expedition, and the local tradition is most likely a mere echo of Harry's trumpet, the Marquess of Bute and Dr. Moir may be right in the suggestion that Harry's battle of Biggar is a duplicate of the later battle of Roslin. In any case, it must be seriously modified both in dimensions and in details.

Harry's account of Wallace's subsequent doings in the south-west must at present be left in a tangle of misconceptions. The dreadful story of the Barns of Ayr, however, claims notice. The details of the treacherous preparations must be rejected, or at least held in grave suspense. The alleged result was that some 360 of the leading Scots of the district—Sir Reginald Crawford, Sir Brice Blair, Sir Niel Montgomery, Crawfords, Kennedys, Campbells, Barclays, Boyds, Stewarts, and so forth—being summoned to attend an eyre at Ayr on June 18, were hanged as they entered, one by one, in the 'Barns,' or barracks, where the meeting was convened. Wallace, who had been specially aimed at, escaped by an accident. Gathering what men he could muster on the spur of the moment—some 300—he came to the Barns at night, fired them, and burnt and slew all the English there. Next he took the castle, but there were only a handful of men in it. Supplementary to the revenge taken by Wallace was 'the Friars' Blessing of Ayr'; for Friar Drumlay, the Prior, who had 140 English quartered with him, simultaneously rose with seven of his brethren, donned harness, and took arms, and slew most of his guests, the few that escaped being drowned. Harry reckons the whole slaughter bill at 5000.

What may be the kernel, or fragments, of truth in the story cannot now be stated. Certainly Sir Reginald Crawford was alive after June 18. Arnulf the Justice may, as the Marquess of Bute suggests, stand for Ormsby the Justiciar, who was attacked by Wallace at Scone. The Marquess looks for explanation to the occasion of Edward's visit to Ayr on August 26, 1298, when the English found Ayr Castle burnt and abandoned. Lord Hailes supposes the story may have taken origin in the pillaging of the English quarters at Irvine in July 1297. Possibly there is a jumble and an exaggeration and distortion of all these facts. But there must be something deeper. The event is mentioned as well known, not only by Harry, but also by Barbour and Major, and in the Complaynt of Scotland. The story, as it stands, does not fit into the known history of the time and place alleged, and must be reserved for more adequate examination.

Wallace, according to Harry, proceeded straight to Glasgow, fearing that Bek and Percy might be perpetrating a similar atrocity at the eyre of justice they were holding for Clydesdale. He defeated the English in a stiff combat, killing Percy quite unhistorically. Bishop Bek, with an escort, escaped to Bothwell, whither Wallace pursued him, but apparently he could not take him out of the hands of Sir Aymer de Valence. Bek was no doubt in Scotland somewhere about this time—perhaps two or three months later than Harry supposes; for Edward had sent him to report personally on the state of affairs, concerning which various unwelcome indications had reached him.

One especially unwelcome report, which the chroniclers specify as the immediate reason for despatching Bek, informed the King of a daring attack upon Ormsby, his Justiciar, at Scone, by Wallace and Douglas. Ormsby demanded homage and fealty, and visited non-performance with the utmost severity. 'The temper of Scotland at that season,' says Lord Hailes, 'required vigilance, courage, liberality, and moderation in its rulers. The ministers of Edward displayed none of these qualities. While other objects of interest or ambition occupied his thoughts, the administration of his officers became more and more abhorred and feeble.' This is true of Ormsby, and true generally. Ormsby, forewarned of the approach of Wallace, just managed to escape, leaving all his goods and chattels to the spoilers. Wallace and Douglas, it is said, killed a great many Englishmen, and laid siege to several castles; but the details are not available.

The date of the attack on Ormsby is given by the chroniclers as May; but the seriousness of the situation must have impressed Edward before then, for we have seen that by this time he was preparing for a 'Scottish war.' The insurrectionary feeling was certainly stirring all over the country, and not merely within the range of Wallace's known operations. About this time, or a little later, Macduff had made an ineffectual rising in Fife; on August 1, Warenne reports from Berwick that the Earl of Strathearn had captured Macduff and his two sons, and 'they shall receive their deserts when they arrive.' About this time, or very little later, Sir Alexander of Argyll was reported to have taken the Steward's castle of Glasrog, and to have invaded Alexander of the Isles, a liegeman of Edward. Has this anything to do with the expedition that Harry sends Wallace on to Argyll for the rescue of Campbell of Lochawe from MacFadyen, whom Edward had made Lord of Argyll and Lorn? After giving over the pursuit of Bek, Wallace had retired to Dundaff, where Duncan of Lorn found him and besought his aid. Wallace promptly responded to the call of his old schoolfellow, defeated MacFadyen, and established Campbell and Duncan in their lands. At Ardchattan many men rallied to his standard, including Sir John Ramsay of Auchterhouse, who had long held out in Strathearn; and with them he proceeded to attack St. Johnston. Whatever the blunders in Harry's details, it is quite certain that there now was revolt against English supremacy in Argyll.

The chroniclers join Douglas with Wallace in the attack on Ormsby. Harry does not mention the episode at all; and if he confuses it with the Barns of Ayr, he does not mention Douglas as present. It may be supposed that Douglas had come south from Scone, and was engaged on a separate enterprise. Harry first puts him in independent action at a much later—and impossible—period. He makes Douglas attack and capture Sanquhar Castle; whereupon the captain of Durisdeer raised the Enoch, Tibbermoor, and Lochmaben, and besieged him in Sanquhar. Douglas, in distress, sent for aid to Wallace, then in the Lennox. May it be Argyll, and not the Lennox? Or did Wallace go to the Lennox after driving Bek out of Glasgow? The event must have been about this time, if ever. At any rate, Wallace promptly relieved him; defeated the English at Dalswinton, slaying 500; and made Douglas keeper from Drumlanrig to Ayr. Be all this as it may, Edward on June 12 confiscated all Douglas's lands and goods in Essex and Northumberland; which seems to indicate that by that date he had learned that Douglas had forsworn his liege lord.

In Galloway, Edward had further trouble with the shifty Bruce of Carrick. When the disturbance took place at Scone, the Bishop of Carlisle, acting with Edward's other high officers in these parts, summoned Bruce to appear, and exacted from him an oath that he would lend faithful aid to the King against the Scots. This may have had nothing whatever to do with the Scone attack, but may have been simply a part in the regular preparations that were going on for the 'Scottish war.' Bruce is supposed to have made a display of his fidelity by the raid he presently made upon the lands of Douglas, which he harried with fire and sword, carrying off Douglas's wife and children to Annandale. It is, however, an obvious suggestion that this vicious foray was a counterblow for the burning of Turnberry Castle in the Biggar campaign, if Douglas was with Wallace in that enterprise, as, on Harry's story, he probably was. Such an interpretation of Bruce's action would tend to confirm Harry on the point; and there was no clear need for Bruce to signalise his fidelity in that particular fashion.

At the same time, Bruce may have done it in order to cloak the conspiracy he was hatching in concert with the Bishop of Glasgow, the Steward, and the Steward's brother John. When the scheme was ripe, Bruce attempted in vain to raise his father's men of Annandale, but he was supported by his own men of Carrick. His party at once fell on burning and slaying, and the chroniclers specially mention the expulsion and contumelious treatment of the English ecclesiastics. If such expulsion was in furtherance of the execution of the edict of April 1296, hitherto held in abeyance by the English domination, that was but a very subordinate consideration. The popular view seems to have been that Bruce was aspiring to the throne. Probably enough, at any rate, he thought that he might lead the nobles to the success that was likely otherwise to crown Wallace. There is no trace of any direct personal connection of Wallace with this movement—no trace except a blunder of Rishanger's, who mentions both Wallace and Andrew de Moray, (? Thomas or Herbert de Morham), but Walter of Hemingburgh rightly gives Douglas in place of Wallace, and omits Moray. Bruce, of course, could not have been expected to put himself under the leadership of a mere landless squire, whose proper place he would have considered to be that of a henchman of his own—a squire, moreover, that consistently professed to act as the liegeman of King John. No; the rising most probably represents an independent attempt of Bruce's party, on the suggestion of Wallace's successes.

Burton is not unnaturally surprised to find Sir William Douglas in Bruce's party. It would be easier for the Douglas pride to bow to Bruce than to Wallace; and the raid on the Douglas estates might be held to cancel the burning of Turnberry, or might otherwise receive a large atonement. In any case, there is barely room for doubt that Douglas eventually, if not from the first, cast in his lot with Bruce. The plot proved a complete fiasco. An English army was upon them. In the first days of June, Edward had appointed Percy and Clifford 'to arrest, imprison, and "justify" all disturbers of the peace in Scotland and their resetters.' Having at length, with great difficulty, raised an army of 300 mounted men-at-arms and 40,000 foot in England north of Trent, Percy and Clifford entered Annandale early in July. Pushing on to Ayr, they learned that the Scots force was near Irvine. The Scots barons are represented at sixes and sevens; so selfishly at strife, that Sir Richard de Lundy, who had never done homage to Edward, passed over to Percy in open disgust at their discord. At any rate, they had neither men nor military capacity nor patriotic ardour to stand up against the English army. They at once sued for terms. On July 7, at Irvine, Percy and Clifford received them to Edward's peace, provisionally promising them their lives, property, and personal liberty, but requiring hostages. Such a pusillanimous collapse of the joint enterprise of half a dozen of the most powerful Scots nobles, the natural leaders of the nation, with young Bruce himself at their head, may suggest some measure of the courage, resource, and patriotism of the youthful and obscure Wallace—especially if we look but two months ahead to the signal victory of Stirling.

The craven spirit of these barons is pilloried in the ignominious document recording their appeal to Warenne to support the convention with Percy. There they stated shamelessly that they had been afraid lest Edward's coming army should harry their lands, and that they had been surely informed that the King would impress 'all the middle people of Scotland' for his war over sea. They had accordingly taken up arms in defence, until they could protect themselves by treaty from such a grievance and dishonour. 'And therefore, when the English army entered within the land, they came to meet them, and had such a conference that all of them came to the peace and the fealty of our lord the King.' Yet their disgraceful treaty, negotiated by the Bishop of Glasgow, acknowledges that they had committed 'acts of arson, slaughter, and plunder.' They had to put the best face upon a weak case. There was vastly more spirit in the nameless Scots and Glaswegians that plundered the English baggage in Irvine, slaying over 500 of the enemy, while their betters were grovelling to Percy and Clifford for admission to the peace of the usurper.

On July 15, Percy and Clifford reached Roxburgh, where they found Cressingham with 300 covered horses and 10,000 foot soldiers, ready to march to their aid next morning. Cressingham's report to the King on July 23 throws interesting side-lights on the situation. Percy and Clifford appear to have thought that the whole object of the expedition had been accomplished. Cressingham, however, urged that 'even though peace had been made on this side the Scots water, yet it would be well to make a chevachie on the enemies on the other side'; or, at any rate, 'that an attack should be made upon William Wallace, who lay then with a large company—and does so still—in the Forest of Selkirk, like one that holds himself against your peace.' We shall presently see that the Scots north of Forth were tolerably active. Meantime Cressingham's reference to Wallace, as well as the formal treaty, appears to indicate all but conclusively that Wallace was no partner of the barons in the fiasco of Irvine. In the result Percy and Cressingham concluded to make no expedition until Warenne should arrive from England.

The next day both Cressingham and Spaldington wrote further particulars to Edward. Spaldington informed him that 'because Sir William Douglas has not kept the covenants he made with Sir Henry de Percy'—that is, had failed to provide hostages or guarantors—'he is in your castle of Berwick, in my keeping, and he is still very savage and very abusive; but,' he added with dutiful zest, 'I will keep him in such wise that, please God, he shall by no means get out.' Douglas was put in irons. On October 12, he was consigned to the Tower of London, and on January 20, 1298–99, he is reported as 'with God.' Again, Cressingham's letter of July 24 shows the irksomeness of the English position. Edward, who had met almost insuperable difficulties in fitting out his Flanders expedition, had urged him to raise money from the issues and the rents of the realm of Scotland to aid Warenne and Percy in their military operations. 'Not a penny could be raised,' says Cressingham, 'until my lord the Earl of Warenne shall enter into your land and compel the people by force and sentence of law.' More than that:—

'Sire, let it not displease you, by far the greater part of your counties of the realm of Scotland are still unprovided with keepers, as well by death, sieges, or imprisonment; and some have given up their bailiwicks, and others neither will nor dare return; and in some counties the Scots have established and placed bailiffs and ministers, so that no county is in proper order, excepting Berwick and Roxburgh, and this only lately.'

After all, Harry may not be far wrong in stating that Wallace appointed sheriffs and captains from 'Gamlispath' to Urr Water, and controlled Galloway, after the alleged battle of Biggar. It may be also, as he says, that Douglas came to Wallace's peace at that time, and ruled from Drumlanrig to Ayr as his lieutenant. In any case, Cressingham's letter marks emphatically the strength of the silent, as well as of the active, resistance of the people of Scotland. The impecunious and helpless Treasurer could qualify his rueful report by only one vague crumb of comfort. 'But, sire, all this will be speedily amended, by the grace of God, by the arrival of the said lord the Earl, Sir Henry de Percy, and Sir Robert Clifford, and the others of your Council.'

The alleged delay of the barons in giving hostages is attributed by the more trusted chroniclers to the urgency of Wallace. First Douglas, and then the Bishop, surrendered their liberty, pricked (it is said) by insulting suspicions of their honour. But this seems to be matter of inference, not of fact. For on August 1, Warenne wrote to Edward: 'Sir William de Douglas is in your castle of Berwick, in good irons and in good keeping, for that he failed to produce his hostages on the day appointed him, as the others did.' As for the Bishop, Edward's own theory, based (he said) on intercepted correspondence of Wishart, was, that he had voluntarily submitted to internment in Roxburgh Castle, in order to plot for its betrayal to the Scots. One would like to see that correspondence. No doubt the compulsion in both cases was altogether external. At any rate, we are told that Wallace was extremely angry when he heard of their surrender; and that, in his rage, he harried the Bishop's house, carrying off his furniture, arms, and horses. Possibly he did; possibly, too, the true story may be that this was the harrying of Bishop Bek, not of Bishop Wishart, in Glasgow. It is further admitted that his followers increased to an immense number, the community of the land following him as their leader and chief, and the whole of the retainers of the magnates adhering to him; 'and although the magnates themselves were with our King in the body, yet their heart was far from him.' This picture agrees fully with the lamentable report of Cressingham.

The trouble in the north was certainly not to be ignored, as Cressingham well knew. Andrew de Moray, son of Sir Andrew de Moray (since Dunbar a prisoner in the Tower), was at the head of an insurrection of considerable magnitude. The Bishop of Aberdeen, and Gartnet, the son of the Earl of Mar, had proceeded to quell it; and early in June Edward had despatched to their aid the Earl of Buchan, and later the Earl of Mar. Mar, Comyn, and Gartnet reported on July 25, that on July 17 at Launoy (?) on the Spey 'met us Andrew de Moray with a great body of rogues,' and 'the aforesaid rogues betook themselves into a very great stronghold of bog and wood, where no horseman could be of service.' They mention 'the great damage which is in the country,' and send Sir Andrew de Rathe to inform him particularly. It is instructive to observe that, when Sir Andrew showed his credence to Cressingham at Berwick, Cressingham warned Edward (August 5) to give little weight to it, for it 'is false in many points, and obscure, as will be well known hereafter, I fear.' On the same date the Constable of Urquhart reported how Moray had besieged his castle; and about the same time Sir Reginald le Cheyne informed Edward how Moray and his 'malefactors' had spoiled and laid waste his goods and lands. Apparently a peace had been patched up somehow; for on August 28 letters of safe-conduct were issued in favour of Andrew de Moray, and of Hugh, son of the Earl of Ross, whose Countess had brought material aid to the English party against Andrew de Moray, to enable both men to visit their fathers in the Tower of London. Andrew de Moray, however, could not have used his safe-conduct, for he fought at Stirling Bridge. By this time Aberdeen was also in revolt. On August 1, Warenne reports that 'we have sent to take Sir Henry de Lazom, who is in your castle of Aberdeen, and there makes a great lord of himself.' Warenne has not yet heard of Lazom's fate; but he can promise that 'if he be caught he shall be honoured according to his deserts.'

Wallace, whatever his strength in Selkirk Forest, evidently felt it inexpedient to offer direct opposition to the troops under Percy and Cressingham at Roxburgh, and under Spaldington at Berwick. He went north, no doubt by Glasgow, if it be true that it was now he harried the facile bishop—or the astute one either. His force augmented steadily as he marched onward. It may have been at this time that he made the expedition into Argyll and Lorn; it may have been at the earlier date previously mentioned. For some little space we must again fall back on the guidance of Harry, who, as we have just seen, brings him from Ardchattan to the siege of St. Johnston. The details that Harry supplies give an air of verisimilitude to his narrative. He tells how Sir John Ramsay had 'bestials' of wood made in the forest, and floated them down the river; how the troops filled the dykes with earth and stone, and advanced the 'bestials' to the walls; and how Wallace, Ramsay, and Graham at last sacked the town, slaying 2000. Ruthven, who had joined with thirty men, and distinguished himself in the siege, Wallace installed as Captain and Sheriff, with the hereditary lieutenancy of Strathearn.

'Then to the north good Wallace made him boun.'

Having first made a flying visit to Cupar, whence the English abbot had fled, Wallace swept over the north country with his accustomed energy. At Glammis he was joined by Bishop Sinclair; Brechin was reached the same night. Next morning Wallace displayed 'the banner of Scotland,' and rode through the Mearns 'in plain battle' to Dunnottar Castle, where some 4000 English had taken refuge. He destroyed them all, even burning down the church, which was full of refugees; not even the intercession of the bishop could save them, for Wallace had fresh on his mind the atrocities of the Barns of Ayr.

Hastening to Aberdeen, Wallace suddenly fell upon the shipping, and destroyed it. Harry mentions no difficulty with the garrison. Wallace at once swept through Buchan, and then round the further north. It is impossible to say how the tour was affected by the results of the recent operations of Andrew de Moray west of the Spey. On August 1—a rather early date—Wallace was back in Aberdeen, making arrangements for the administration of the north. He immediately passed south to the siege of Dundee.

There are some historical blunders in Harry's sketch of Wallace's northern expedition. Thus, Sinclair, though a good patriot, was not Bishop of Dunkeld till 1308, at any rate, not 'with the Pope's consent'; Matthew de Crambeth was bishop from 1288 to 1304 at least. Sir Henry de Beaumont, too, whom Harry drives out of Buchan, was not earl till some ten years later. Again, if Wallace was in Selkirk Forest on July 23, as Cressingham reported, he could not, with all his celerity, have overrun the north and been back in Aberdeen by August 1. It does not, however, by any means follow that Harry's account is not fairly right in substance. In any case, it seems certain that the whole of Scotland north of the Forth—except Dundee and Stirling—was under the sway of Wallace just before the battle of Stirling Bridge.

On August 22, Edward embarked for Flanders, and did not return to England till March 14. A few days before sailing (August 14), he had designated Sir Brian Fitz Alan to succeed Warenne as Governor of Scotland, Warenne being ill and anxious to be relieved. In obedience to urgent orders to remain at his post, however, Warenne had gone north at the head of the English army, and was making for Stirling. On hearing of his approach, Wallace left one of his lieutenants to carry on the siege of Dundee, and hastened to dispute the passage of the Forth. He could not occupy Stirling Castle, for the castle was not, as Harry says, in the hands of Earl Malcolm (who, on the contrary, was in the English camp), but had been in the hands of Sir Richard de Waldegrave, the English Constable, since September 8, 1296. Wallace chose his position with the instinct of military genius. With his back to the Abbey Craig and the Ochils above the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, and with a loop of the Forth protecting him in front, he commanded at his will the head of the bridge that lay between him and the enemy. He is said to have had 180 horse and 40,000 foot, while Warenne had 1000 horse and 50,000 foot; but little reliance can be placed on the figures. Cressingham, it is said, had directed Percy to disband his army of the west, believing that the force under Warenne was amply sufficient for the campaign.

As the armies lay in view of each other, with the river rolling between them, negotiations took place with a view to some accommodation. The Steward of Scotland and Earl Malcolm of the Lennox readily obtained Warenne's permission to try what they could do in representations to Wallace. Wallace, however, was absolutely irreconcilable. Warenne next despatched two friars to Wallace, to invite him and his men to come to the King's peace, promising impunity for all past offences. 'Take back for answer,' said Wallace, 'that we are not here to sue for peace, but are ready to fight for the freedom of ourselves and of our country. Let the English come on when they please, they shall find us ready to meet them to their beards.' The reply might have been anticipated.

In the English camp the report of the friars was correctly interpreted as a plain defiance, and strengthened the clamour of Cressingham and his friends for an immediate attack on the presumptuous Scots. Warenne, ill, and anxious to reach an easy settlement, was unable to withstand 'the ignorant impetuosity' of the overbearing churchman. Sir Richard de Lundy, whom Harry mistakenly ranges on the side of Wallace, interposed with a wise suggestion. He pointed out the fatal folly of attempting to advance over the bridge, which allowed only two to pass abreast; by that way 'we are dead men.' He offered to take a party of 500 horse and a detachment of infantry across a ford—'probably the ford of Maner,' Hailes thinks—and catch the enemy in the rear. Lundy's proposal was declined, on the flimsy ground that it would divide the army, the real ground probably being doubt of his fidelity. Still Warenne hesitated. 'Why do we drag out the war in this fashion,' urged the Treasurer, 'and waste the King's treasure? Let us fight, as is our bounden duty.' Warenne at last gave way.

On the morning of September 11, Cressingham led the English van across the narrow bridge of Stirling. From the slopes of the Abbey Craig—over which now towers the imposing National Monument—Wallace sternly watched them defiling in steady movement all the morning till eleven o'clock. At the critical moment he sent the blast of his horn thrilling through the valley, the signal to launch his eager men upon the English van. While the main bodies of the combatants met in deadly shock, a company of Scots seized and held the head of the bridge. This movement was no sooner realised than it embarrassed and disordered the advancing English, and struck apprehension into the hearts of such as had passed over. Hopeless confusion passed into irretrievable disaster. The English vanguard was cut to pieces or driven into the Forth. Cressingham himself was slain. Sir Marmaduke Twenge, who had been among the first to cross, seeing the inevitable rout, cut his way back to the bridge with conspicuous valour, and effected his escape. This remarkable exception indicates forcibly the plight of the rest. As the English drew back from the bridge, the Scots pressed vehemently upon them. Warenne, who had not crossed the river, promptly took to horse, and, ill as he was, did not draw bridle till he reached Berwick, and did not rest till he was safe on the English side of the Border.

It is said that the Scots flayed Cressingham's body and distributed the skin in strips. So deeply was he detested in life, that it is far from unlikely that his enemies took a morbid revenge upon him in death. After all, it is only sentimentally worse than the fate he narrowly escaped at the hands of his own men, who were incensed almost to the point of stoning him to death for declining the aid of Percy's force. Still the fact, if a fact, is to be regretted; although the Furies were let loose.

The Steward and Earl Malcolm are represented as playing a double part, at which the Steward, at any rate, was getting well practised. Having failed to arrange an accommodation with Wallace, they had promised Warenne to bring him some forty more horse on the day of battle. They discreetly waited to see how the event would declare itself, and then calmly stood on the winning side with contemptible judiciousness.

The Scots at once entered upon an eager pursuit of Warenne's flying army. Harry traces the English flight through the Tor Wood, and on to Haddington and Dunbar, marking the route by large chronicles of the slain. Wallace at once returned to Stirling. The Constable of the castle, Sir Richard de Waldegrave, and great part of the garrison, had been killed at the bridge; and Warenne had given the command to Sir William de Fitz Warin, with whom was the redoubtable Sir Marmaduke de Twenge, and 'other good soldiers.' The castle was quickly reduced 'from want of victuals.' Sir William de Ros, by his own account, was one of the captives, and 'William le Waleys spared his life from being Sir Robert's brother (? cousin); but as he would not renounce his allegiance, sent him a prisoner to Dumbarton Castle, where he lay in irons and hunger till its surrender to the King after the battle of Falkirk.' On April 7, 1299, Edward authorised negotiations for the exchange of a number of prisoners, including Fitz Warin, Twenge, and Ros. Fitz Warin died the same year (before Dec. 23). The fate of the rest of the garrison was probably similar.

Harry tells how Wallace received all the barons that were willing to come to him, requiring them all to swear 'a great oath' to be loyal to himself and to Scotland, with the alternative of death or imprisonment. Sir John de Menteith he mentions specifically as having taken the oath. But this subordination of the 'barons'—in spirit at least—is to be accepted with some reserve; though an English annalist also tells us that the Scots adhered to Wallace, 'from the least to the greatest'; and the papers about 'ordinances and confederations,' found on Wallace's person when he was captured, point to a concordat of some sort. Dundee was at once evacuated; and in ten days not an English captain was left in Scotland, except in Berwick and Roxburgh. Wallace had at length achieved the deliverance of Scotland.

[CHAPTER V]
Wallace Guardian of Scotland

'Be caus I am a natyff Scottis man,
It is my dett to do all that I can
To fend our kynrik out off dangeryng.'

Harry, viii. 545–7.

'The grettast lordis of oure land,
Til him he gert them be bowand.'

Wyntoun, viii. 13, 119–20.

'Sa afald wes ay for the commoun weill.'

Boece, Cron. xlvii. 802.

The immediate outcome of the victory of Stirling Bridge was the clearance of the English out of the realm of Scotland. At the same time, the success gave no measure of the relative strength of the two countries, now fully transformed from friendly neighbours into bitter enemies. It in no way diminishes the glory of Wallace to recognise the accidental weakness of the English at Stirling—the illness of Warenne, the headstrong folly of Cressingham, and the absence of Edward in Flanders. Wallace, on the other hand, had also his own disadvantages in men and means, owing especially to the fatal operation of the feudal machinery of society. He was grievously weakened by the absence of adherents of hereditary name and territorial importance; and yet the presence of such adherents was soon destined to paralyse his efforts. Whatever the difficulties of Edward—foreign expeditions, vexatious claims of intractable barons, or lack of ready money—he could always in the last resort raise a large army of veteran troops, against which the raw levies of Wallace could not possibly hold a plain field. But then Wallace had the courage never to submit or yield. The military determination of such a conflict could not lie in a single decisive battle; it could be reached only through long years of desultory and embittered warfare. Yet the victory of Stirling was all-important to the Scots, in demonstrating that even the mighty armies of England might be disastrously overthrown, and that Scotland might, after all, succeed in throwing off the intolerable yoke of foreign domination. It was a star of hope.

There can be little doubt as to the course taken by the Scots leaders after the expulsion of the English. They summoned a council or convention at St. Johnston. At this council they elected William Wallace and Andrew de Moray 'generals of the army of Scotland,' with full civil powers as well, in the name of King John. By the victory of Stirling, Wallace stood forth the foremost man in Scotland. He had held the leadership, and he had proved himself worthy. But while his deserts were beyond cavil, there was a natural reluctance on the part of the barons to serve under such a 'new man'; and, to obviate this difficulty, it was necessary, or at least desirable, to join with him in command a representative of the baronage. The choice of Andrew de Moray was no doubt suggested by his conspicuous services, especially his recent action in Moray, and his conduct at the bridge. Baronial considerations may also explain the official precedence of Moray's name. Some of the chroniclers say that Sir Andrew de Moray, his father, fell at Stirling; but Sir Andrew was lying safe in the Tower of London. The report of an inquisition at Berwick in 1300 incidentally mentions that it was Andrew de Moray himself that fell at Stirling, but this must be a blunder. The fallen Moray must have been some other member of the brave and prolific family of Morays.

For all practical purposes, at any rate, the interests of the country were in the keeping of Wallace, and he undoubtedly proceeded to establish order with a firm hand and with unflagging energy. One of the most powerful of the Scots nobles, Patrick Earl of March, did not appear to the summons to council. The general feeling, Harry tells us, ran in favour of proceeding against him without delay. Wallace, however, deprecated such brusqueness of action, and induced the Council to despatch a special invitation to the Earl, urging him to come and take his proper place in the counsels of his countrymen. Patrick, however, returned an insulting answer, contemptuously pointed at Wallace, whom he called a 'King of Kyle'; implying thereby much what Langtoft means when he calls Wallace a 'master of thieves'; for Kyle signifies 'forest,' as well as designates the district of Wallace's birth. Thereupon Wallace at once went against him, defeated him in a hard fight near Dunbar, and took his castle, Patrick himself escaping into England. Even after the expedition into England, which was no doubt now resolved upon, had reached Berwick, Wallace, it is said, on learning that certain recalcitrants as far north as Aberdeen ignored the summons to render aid, left Moray in charge and proceeded at once to the spot, where he promptly hanged such as failed to furnish a good excuse. Wallace appears to have carried out consistently the rule of driving furth of Scotland every Englishman, layman or ecclesiastic; unless exception must be made of the garrison of Roxburgh. Scotland for the Scots! On the death of Fraser, he had William de Lamberton appointed Bishop of St. Andrews, defeating the opposition of William Comyn, brother of the Earl of Buchan.

The military situation was but a temporary respite, and required instant preparation for both attack and defence. The condition of the country was lamentable. The land south of Forth had been denuded of everything likely to afford subsistence to the invaders; and what the Scots had not drawn off had been eaten up or destroyed by the English troops. Throughout Scotland there was severe scarcity, if not actual famine, with pestilence in its track. In view of relieving the pressure at home, and of adding to the supplies from the plenty of the northern counties of England, as well as of heartening his men and people by striking a counterblow to the enemy in their own territory, Wallace—or the Council—projected a strong foray across the border. For that enterprise, however, it was necessary to make adequate preparations.

Wallace appears to have not rested content with marshalling afresh his Stirling forces, with the later recruits that flocked to his standard. He is stated to have now made a deliberate attack upon the feudal vassalage, which hampered him so menacingly. He is said to have divided the country into military districts, establishing district muster-rolls of all persons between sixteen and sixty, capable of bearing arms. Over every four men he appointed a fifth; over every nine, a tenth; over every nineteen, a twentieth; and so on upwards. A gibbet frowning over every parish enforced respect to the conscription; examples were not wanting. The barons were threatened with imprisonment or confiscation in case they offered any obstacle to the incorporation of their vassals in the army of liberation. The particular process outlined by the later historian Bower may be no more than his own interpretation of facts he little understood; but there need be no hesitation in believing that Wallace at this time made some strenuous effort of reorganisation, directed to blunting the force of feudal influences, as well as to rendering his army both more flexible and more efficient.

At the same time it is certain that his mind was much occupied in devising means of alleviation of the internal distress occasioned by the prolonged inflictions of foreign invasion and foreign occupation. The trading activity of the seaports, animated by settlers from the Continent, notably by enterprising Flemings, had permeated and vivified the whole country; but the wars had seriously checked the streams of business across the North Sea, as well as the inland trade and industry. That Wallace took energetic measures of amelioration has been happily placed beyond question by Lappenberg's discovery (1829) of a most significant letter still extant in the archives of the city of Lübeck. This letter, which is in Latin, may be rendered thus:

'Andrew de Moray and William Wallace, the Generals of the army of the realm of Scotland, and the Community of the same realm, to the prudent and discreet men and well-beloved friends, the Mayors and Commons of Lübeck and Hamburg, greeting, and increase ever of sincere friendship.

'We have learned from trustworthy merchants of the said realm of Scotland that you, of your own goodwill, lend your counsel, aid, and favour in all matters and transactions touching us and the said merchants, although we on our part have previously done nothing to deserve such good offices; and all the more on that account are we bound to tender you our thanks and to make a worthy return. To do so we willingly engage ourselves to you, requesting that you will make it known among your merchants that they can have safe access to all the ports of the realm of Scotland with their merchandise; for the realm of Scotland, thank God, has been recovered by war from the power of the English. Farewell.

'Given at Hadsington (Haddington), in Scotland on October 11, in the year of Grace 1297.

'We further request you to have the goodness to forward the business of John Burnet and John Frere, merchants of ours, as you would wish us to forward the business of merchants of yours. Farewell. Given as above.'

Moray and Wallace, it is to be noted, designate themselves 'the Generals,' and join with themselves 'the Community' of Scotland. They are Joint-Guardians in effect, though not in official name.

The Scots army mustered on Roslin Moor. As it approached the border, the English settlers in Roxburgh and Berwick mostly fled into Northumberland, whence the Northumbrians themselves were fleeing to the protection of Newcastle. Towards the end of October, the Scots streamed into England, and ravaged Northumberland at will, molested only in its fringes by occasional and trifling sallies from strongholds like Alnwick Castle. Here they derived effective assistance from the local knowledge and strong arm of Sir Robert de Ros of Wark; and they apparently made Rothbury Forest a rallying ground. They next directed their march to Carlisle; but Carlisle, like Alnwick, was too strongly fortified to yield to besiegers unprovided with 'engines.' We have the Bishop's word for it, however, that they wasted the country for some thirty leagues around; and the chroniclers tell us how they traversed Englewood Forest and Allerdale with fire and sword, penetrating as far as to the Derwent at Cockermouth. Crossing country again from Cumberland, with designs on the bishopric of Durham, they were repelled by a timely storm—hail, snow, and hard frost—invoked by St. Cuthbert. Many of them, Hemingburgh affirms, perished from hunger and cold. Thereupon they fell back on Hexham.

At Hexham Priory, which Comyn's expedition had left in ruins some eighteen months before, the Scots found only three canons, who had valorously ventured to return. These now took refuge in their oratory, which they had newly erected in the midst of the desolation, there to die, should such be the will of God, in the odour of holiness. 'Show us the treasury of your church,' roared the marauders, brandishing their spears, 'or you shall instantly die.' 'It is no long time,' stoutly replied one of the canons, 'since you and your people carried off pretty well everything we possessed, and what you have done with it you know best yourselves. Since then, we have got together but a few things, as you now see.' At this moment, Wallace himself opportunely entered, and, ordering his men to fall back, requested that one of the canons would celebrate mass. On the elevation of the Host, Wallace went out to lay aside his arms, and, when the celebrant was about to receive the sacred elements, the Scots crowded up to him, with the intention of snatching away the chalice. He retired into the sacristy to wash his hands. Then the rapacity of the soldiers broke loose. They seized the chalice from the altar, where the canon had left it in unsuspecting confidence, the napkins, the altar ornaments, and the very mass book the canon had been using. Wallace, on his return, found the canon in bewildered consternation, and instantly ordered the culprits to be sought for and beheaded. They were not found, says the historian ruefully, for the seeking was without intention of finding. Wallace, however, took the canons under his immediate protection, warning them to keep close to his person, for his men were full of mischief, and little amenable either to law or to punishment. This story, Canon Raine thinks, 'was probably told to the historian by his brother canon, William de Hexham, who migrated from the north to Leicester in 1321.' Knighton of Leicester, however, copied or adapted the story from Hemingburgh; but Hemingburgh himself may have got it at Guisborough in Yorkshire in some such direct way. It forms a very striking episode, and it fits in perfectly with Wallace's grant of two charters—one of protection and one of safe-conduct—to the Prior and convent.

The violence of the soldiery of the time, Scots or English, is a fact, demanding such blame or palliation as may be fairly evoked by the circumstances of each case. The specific protections now issued by Wallace, as certified by Hemingburgh, himself an English chronicler, constitute a conspicuous and irrefragable testimony to the hero's humanity. Did Wallace's conduct touch the old chronicler himself? At this story he drops his usual epithet for Wallace—'that notorious bandit' (ille latro). We refrain from pressing the obvious contrasts to Wallace's considerate action. The charter of protection to the Prior and convent of Hexham may be rendered thus:

'Andrew de Moray and William Wallace, Generals of the army of Scotland, in the name of the renowned Prince Lord John, by the grace of God, the illustrious King of Scotland, with the consent of the Community of the same realm, to all men of the said realm to whom the present writing shall come, greeting,—

'Know that we, in the name of the said King, have duly taken the Prior and convent of Hexham in Northumberland, their lands, their men, and the whole of their possessions, including all their goods, movable and immovable, under the firm peace and protection of the said Lord King and of ourselves. Wherefore we strictly forbid that any one presume to do them any evil, annoyance, injury, or offence in their persons, lands, or goods, under penalty of forfeiture of all the offender's property to the said Lord King, or to put them, or any one of them, to death, under penalty of loss of life and limbs. These presents to remain in force for one year and no longer.

'Given at Hexham, November 7.'

A letter of safe-conduct was at the same time granted in the following terms:—

'Andrew de Moray and William Wallace ... (as before).

'Know that we have received one canon of Hexham, with his squire and two attendants, to the safe and secure conduct of our King and of ourselves, to enable them to come to us wherever we may be, whenever it shall be necessary and expedient for the said house. And therefore, in the name of the said Lord King, we order and strictly enjoin you, all and every, that, when any canon of the said house, with the squire aforesaid and his attendants, shall come to you with the object of coming to us, bearing the present letter, you conduct them to us under safe charge, in such manner that no one shall molest them in their persons or in their belongings in any respect, under penalty of forfeiture of all the offender's property to the King, or shall put them or any of them to death, under penalty of loss of life and limbs. These presents to remain force during our pleasure.'

Moray and Wallace are still 'the Generals of the army of Scotland,' but now it is further stated that they are acting in the name of King John. The deposition of John is defiantly ignored. It has been supposed that, between October 11 and November 7, John had sent them a commission authorising them to act under his sanction. This is not impossible; but the step would have involved extreme risk of personal danger to himself, however it might have strengthened the official influence of the Generals. It seems too hazardous to conjecture that the fresh expression implies a fresh sanction, obtained in such circumstances. One had rather regard it as simply a fuller statement of the view that the Generals now, if not all along, held as to the nature of their position. There seems little reason, however, to doubt that the Council had from the first resolved that all official acts should be in the name of King John.

Having spent two days at Hexham, the expedition headed for Newcastle, burning Ritton on the way. The garrison of Newcastle showed fight, and the garrison of Durham also; otherwise there was no opposition. The Scots had no means to enter upon an effective siege, and accordingly they wasted no efforts upon an attempt. They recrossed the border about Christmas, having worked their will in the three northern counties for the best of two months.

The narratives of the inroad are, perhaps unavoidably, somewhat confused. The movements of the Scots seem to have been exceedingly rapid; they may, not improbably, have come and gone in relays, keeping temporary headquarters in Rothbury Forest; and it may be that the incidents are not all treated in their right order. But the general account of a comprehensive ravage of the three northern counties from Tweed to Tyne and Derwent, during November and December, is solid fact. The effects of the visitation may be partly gathered from Hemingburgh's narrative. 'During that time,' he says, 'the praise of God ceased in all the monasteries and churches of the whole province from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Carlisle; for all the monks, canons regular, and other priests, servants of the Lord, had fled, with (one may say) the whole of the common folk, from the face of the Scots.' We cannot attend Harry on his rambles to two sieges of York and a descent upon St. Albans (to say nothing of the Queen's embassy); much less can we go with Boece as far as Kent—which his editor, however, boldly converts into 'Tyne.'

About the same time, Sir Robert de Clifford, the Warden of the Western Marches, had executed a diversion by way of reprisal. He sallied from Carlisle with 100 men-at-arms and (says Hemingburgh) 20,000 chosen foot soldiers, crossed the Solway, and ravaged Annandale with fire and sword, carrying back considerable booty. The raiders returned to Carlisle on Christmas Eve. Probably Clifford had in fact no great force at command, even if the levies ordered for him in Lancashire in the middle of November had by this time joined him. Towards the end of February he made a like foray, and burnt the town of Annan, but apparently this was a less forcible effort than the raid of December.

Meantime extensive preparations had been in progress in England for a fresh expedition against the Scots. Edward was still in Flanders. After Stirling Bridge, Warenne had gone to consult with Prince Edward at York. On September 24, the northern barons, who had been summoned to join the Prince in London, were directed to join Warenne; and Clifford and Fitz Alan were instructed to act in concert with him. On October 23, Ormsby received orders to raise levies numbering over 35,000 men. On October 26, it was ordered that provisions and stores should be forwarded from all the eastern seaboard, by sea and land, to Holy Island or Newcastle. On December 10, an order was issued for levies to be raised in Wales, and to be ready at Durham or Newcastle by January 28 at the latest. On the same day Warenne was formally appointed to the command. The available strength of England was to be hurled against Scotland.

The main body of the English army was to assemble at York on January 20. On the 14th a parliament was held. The English magnates attended in great force, and their goodwill was conciliated by a confirmation of Magna Carta (with certain additional concessions) and of the Forest Charter, sent by Edward from Flanders. The Scots nobles that had been summoned 'neither came nor sent.' Warenne proceeded to Newcastle. There, on January 28, Hemingburgh says, he marshalled 2000 armed horse, over 1200 unarmed horse, and more than 100,000 foot, including the Welsh contingent; and the army was steadily augmented as it advanced. Warenne relieved Roxburgh and recovered Berwick, the Scots having retired before his overwhelming force. There, however, his expedition was stayed by a despatch from Edward, announcing the conclusion of peace with France, and directing Warenne to hold Berwick, but not to undertake any enterprise of importance till he himself should arrive. Warenne therefore temporarily disbanded his army, retaining with him in Berwick 1500 armed horse and some 20,000 foot from Wales and from the remoter parts of England.

The retreat of the English before the Scots at Stanmore is very differently related by Scots and English historians; and the Scots writers are undoubtedly wrong in stating that Edward himself was present. It can be readily explained by the orders to Warenne; and, in any case, it is of no importance. Plainly the Scots were unable to hold the open field. How Wallace was engaged immediately after the retreat from Roxburgh, where he is said to have been personally in command, we do not know. It seems probable that, amidst all his concern for the military situation, he was not neglecting the internal reorganisation of the country. Under date March 29, 1298, he granted to Alexander Scrymgeour the hereditary Constableship of Dundee 'for his faithful service and aid in bearing the Royal Banner in the army of Scotland,' a service he was then actually performing. The charter bears to be granted by 'Sir William Wallace, Guardian of the realm of Scotland and leader of the armies of that realm, in the name of the renowned Prince Lord John, by the Grace of God, the illustrious King of Scotland, with the consent of the community of the said realm.' In the body of the document the grant is stated to be made 'by the consent and approbation of the magnates of the said realm.' 'The common seal of the aforesaid realm of Scotland' is stated to be impressed on the charter, and the seal of John is attached. The place of grant is Torphichen.

Andrew de Moray is no more in joint authority—very likely he had died; and Wallace is officially designated 'Guardian of the realm of Scotland.' He may, as is usually said, have been elected in the Forest of Selkirk—a very wide place in those days; and the immediate reason may possibly have been the expediency of an undivided authority in the face of an overwhelming army of invasion. Lord Hailes says he 'assumed' the title; but if this means that Wallace adopted the title without having it conferred on him, the suggestion is wholly improbable. It is interesting to know that on December 5, 1303 (? 1300), Bruce, as one of the Guardians, recognised and enforced this charter.

It is a point of small importance when or by whom, if ever, Wallace was formally knighted. But since it has been made an occasion for carping at Wallace, we may cite an English political song in default of better authority. Philip of France, in a letter quoted on a subsequent page, styles him miles, but the objectors say that may mean simply 'soldier.' The song says—

'Jam redit in Scotiam populus malignus;
Et Willelmo datum est militare pignus;
De prædone fit eques, ut de corvo cignus;
Accipit indignus sedem, cum non prope dignus.'

That is to say:—'Now return to Scotland the malignant people; and to William is given the knightly pledge—knighthood: from a robber he becomes a knight, as from a raven a swan; the unworthy takes the seat, when there is none worthy by.' Thanks to the 'malignant' poet. The writer of the Cottonian MS., referring to this song, states that it was one of the foremost Scots earls that girded Wallace with the belt of knighthood; but he places the date just before, not after, the foray into England.

Edward landed at Sandwich on March 14, and lost no time in pushing forward the Scottish expedition. He accommodated his nobles with a promise of reconfirmation of the charters, the York confirmation not having been made in England. Fresh orders were issued for provisions, the Carlisle depôt to be specially supplied from Ireland. A parliament was held at York on May 25, the place and date originally fixed for the muster. Again, it is stated, the Scots nobles summoned 'neither came nor sent.' On May 27, Edward issued orders to the sheriffs to have their men up at Roxburgh by June 23; and next day he appointed Earl Patrick Captain of Berwick Castle. Meantime he sought inspiration at the shrines of St. John of Beverley and of two other less famous saints. On reaching Roxburgh, he found his army ready to march. According to Hemingburgh, there were 3000 armed horse, 4000 unarmed horse, and 80,000 foot, consisting largely of Welsh and Irish. At the head of this immense force, Edward advanced to Kirkliston.

By this time Sir Aymer de Valence and Sir John Siward, who had sailed direct from Flanders, had landed in Fife. Wallace found them in the Forest of Blackearnside, and defeated them severely on June 12. He is said to have lost Sir Duncan Balfour, Sheriff of Fife, and perhaps Sir Christopher Seton, while Sir John the Graham was badly wounded. This is one of Blind Harry's great fights. One would much like to have certain authority for his statement that Wallace, in a respite from actual fighting in the heat of the day, instead of taking much-needed rest, carried water in a helmet from a neighbouring brook for the relief of his wounded men. We should not hesitate to accept it, on a general impression of the character and temperament of the Guardian. Having reasserted his authority in Fife, Wallace drew south again to keep the English army under observation.

The English army lay at Kirkliston. Edward had suffered much annoyance from parties sallying on the fringes of his army from Dirleton and two other castles; and he had sent the Bishop of Durham to reduce them. The Bishop found his task by no means an easy one. He was not well furnished either with provisions or with engines, and the garrison of Dirleton fought him manfully. He sent a messenger to Edward, a truculent soldier, Sir John Fitz Marmaduke. With a sub-humorous reply to Antony, Edward is said by Hemingburgh to have thus instructed Fitz Marmaduke: 'You are a relentless soldier, Marmaduke. I have often had to reprove you for too cruel exultation over the death of your enemies. But return now whence you came, and be as relentless as you choose—you will deserve my thanks, not my censure. But look you do not see my face again till these three castles are razed to the ground.' The three castles were soon taken and burnt down.