[CHAPTER IX]
The Patriot Hero
'Lawta and trowth was ay in Wallace seyn;
To fend the rycht all that he tuk on hand.'
Harry, viii. 144–5.
'The manlyast man, the starkest off persoun,
Leyffand he was; and als stud in sic rycht
We traist weill God his dedis had in sycht.'
Harry, ix. 616–18.
It is matter of deep regret that the facts of the personality and career of Wallace still remain so obscure. There is no alternative but to piece them together painfully from the strange miscellany of available materials, perplexed, distorted, fragmentary, and fabulous. Yet when the misrepresentations of virulent foes and adulatory admirers are firmly brushed away, the patriot hero stands forth, incontestably, as one of the grandest figures in history.
On the death of Alexander III., Scotland sank from the crest of prosperity into the very trough of adversity. The brief reigns of the infant Margaret and the puppet Balliol only served as breathing-space for the marshalling of the forces of internal conflict to the profit of a powerful and remorseless aggressor. Industry was unsettled; commerce was disorganised. The King was contemned; the nobles were distrusted. Both King and nobles were liegemen of the foreigner, while the free commons sullenly nourished the passion of immemorial independence. Scotland was indeed 'stad in perplexytè.' Her 'gold wes changyd in to lede.' When, and whence, would ever come succour and remede?
Succour and remede sprang, naturally, from the insolence and oppression of the minions of the invader. Little did Wallace know or reck of the solemn farce enacted at Norham and Berwick, or of the feudal rights of Balliol or another. Like a deliverer of old, 'he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens'; 'when he saw there was no man, he slew the Englishman, and hid him in the sand.' An outlaw, he drew to him friends, free lances, probably enough desperadoes, and waged such guerrilla warfare as was possible against the oppressors of his family and his countrymen. Some other knights and squires similarly maintained themselves in the forests and fastnesses of the land. But there must have been some distinctive and commanding qualities in the man that was able to step forward in that dark hour from an obscure social position to lead the forlorn hope of Scottish independence.
'Wallace's make, as he grew up to manhood,' says Tytler, 'approached almost to the gigantic; and his personal strength was superior to the common run of even the strongest men.' Even Burton dissociates himself from belief in this statement. But surely, though 'the later romancers and minstrels' have 'profusely trumpeted Wallace's personal prowess and superhuman strength,' the assertion of Tytler makes no great draft on one's credulity. On the contrary, in an age when warlike renown depended so essentially on personal deeds of derring-do, the astonishing thing—the incredible thing—would be if Wallace had not been a man of pre-eminent physical strength and resourcefulness in the use of arms. By what other means, indeed, could the second son of an obscure knight, a mere youth just out of his teens, living the life of an outlaw, uncountenanced by the support of a single great noble, by any possibility have maintained himself, attracted adherents, impressed the enemy, and become the hero of a nation, if he did not possess quite exceptional physical strength and prowess? How is it possible that a man that had gone through the hardships of a desperate guerrilla, as Wallace must have done, should be other than a man 'of iron frame'? Ajax was taller than Agamemnon; and Jop may have stood a head higher than Wallace. But the substantial fact of his impressive physique is not to be denied. The romancers exaggerate, of course; but on this point even Harry scarcely outdoes Major or Bower.