Sir William Wallace

by Alexander Falconer Murison

Harry's slight sketch of Wallace as a 'child' of eighteen prepares us for the description of his hero in his prime by 'clerks, knights, and heralds' of France, which, he says, Blair set down 'in Wallace' book.'

'Wallace' stature, in largeness and in height,
Was judged thus, by such as saw him right
Both in his armour dight and in undress:
Nine quarters large he was in length—no less;
Third part his length in shoulders broad was he,
Right seemly, strong, and handsome for to see;
His limbs were great, with stalwart pace and sound;
His brows were hard, his arms were great and round;
His hands right like a palmer's did appear,
Of manly make, with nails both great and clear;
Proportioned long and fair was his visàge;
Right grave of speech, and able in couràge;
Broad breast and high, with sturdy neck and great,
Lips round, his nose square and proportionate;
Brown wavy hair, on brows and eyebrows light,
Eyes clear and piercing, like to diamonds bright.
On the left side was seen below the chin,
By hurt, a wen; his colour was sanguìne.
Wounds, too, he had in many a diverse place,
But fair and well preserved was aye his face.
Of riches for himself he kept no thing;
Gave as he won, like Alexander the King.
In time of peace, meek as a maid was he;
Where war approached, the right Hector was he.
To Scots men ever credence great he gave;
Known enemies could never him deceive.
These qualities of his were known in France,
Where people held him in good remembrance.'

It is futile to dispute over fractional details. Let the most exacting historical critic array the indisputable facts of Wallace's birth, breeding, and career, and frame upon these his conception of the figure of the man. It is impossible that there should be any substantial difference between such a picture and the picture exhibited by Harry. Fordun states that Wallace was 'wondrously brave and bold, of goodly mien, and boundless liberality'; and that he ruled with an iron hand of discipline. Major declines to commit himself to Wallace's alleged feats of strength; yet he does not scruple to affirm that 'two or even three Englishmen were scarce able to make stand against him, such was his bodily strength, such also the quickness of his dexterity, and his indomitable courage,' while 'there was no extreme of cold or heat, or hunger or of thirst, that he could not bear.' And Bower's description bears out fully the account given by Harry. The objector is not to be envied in his task of explaining how Wallace fought in the thickest of the battle, how he defended the rear against mailed horsemen on barbed chargers, and how he stood at the head of the Scots in the battle of Stirling Bridge.

But, as Burton justly remarks, 'Wallace's achievements demanded qualities of a higher order.' Now Burton's cautious reticence gives especial emphasis to his decided affirmation that Wallace 'was a man of vast political and military genius.' 'As a soldier,' the circumspect Burton freely admits, 'Wallace was one of those marvellously gifted men, arising at long intervals, who can see through the military superstitions of the day, and organise power out of those elements which the pedantic soldier rejects as rubbish.' Yes, Wallace had to create, and then to train; not merely to organise and marshal and order in the field. Wallace started with the sole equipment of his single sword. With his small and inexperienced body of comrades, without mailed barons or mailed chargers, he was driven by sheer necessity to devise means of conserving his force and at the same time making it as effective as possible in offence. At Stirling, his masterly selection of the ground practically decided the issue; the rash confidence of Cressingham only rendered the victory more complete. At Falkirk, as Burton points out, 'he showed even more of the tactician in the disposal of his troops where they were compelled to fight'—tactics amply vindicated on many a modern battlefield. 'The arrangement, save that it was circular instead of rectangular, was precisely the same as the "square to receive cavalry" which has baffled and beaten back so many a brilliant army in later days.' But for the defection of the cavalry, comparatively weak as they were, Falkirk might have been Stirling Bridge. These tactics, however, admirable as they are universally acknowledged to have been, and even original, were no doubt developed by painful experience in the guerrilla period. And, on the other hand, it is to be remembered that, while Scotland had had no experience of war for more than a century, Wallace was not only crippled by the operation of the feudal allegiance, but had for his opponents the ablest generals and the most seasoned warriors of the age.

On the moral side of war, Wallace must indeed have been a sanguinary barbarian if any apology for his severities be due to the murderers of his wife, to the conqueror that made Berwick swim in blood, to the insolent tramplers upon the common human feelings of his countrymen, or to the juggling reivers of the independence of his country. We decline to apologise for his alleged private reprisals: if you madden a man with open injustice and intolerable oppression, if you gaily lacerate his soul in his physical helplessness, it is you yourself that invite him to have recourse to the primal code of retaliation. If Wallace, as Harry says, never spared any Englishman 'that able was to war,' it was an intelligible principle in the dire circumstances of the time; and he is not known to have deprecated the application of the principle to himself. If he imagined that there had come to him an admonition, divine and imperative, to slay and spare not, we decline to censure him because he hewed his enemies in pieces before the Lord.

Yet such deliberate and inexorable rigour of policy is a wholly different matter from gratuitous cruelty. Wallace did not war on women, priests, or other 'weak folk.' It is not the strong man that is a cruel man. True, the English historians brand him as brigand, cut-throat, man of Belial, and so forth—latro ille, latro publicus, etc.—and ascribe to him inhuman atrocities. This indeed is by no means unnatural for writers of the cloister, starting from Wallace's outlawry and his guerrilla warfare, and cherishing a full share of the virulent international enmity. But while no doubt very rough deeds were done in those days on both sides, 'Herodian cruelties' are but the stock allegations of dislike at this period; and they are hurled from both sides indiscriminately. Major expressly admits that 'towards all unwarlike persons, such as women and children, towards all who claimed his mercy, he showed himself humane,' though 'the proud and all who offered resistance he knew well how to curb.' The strong impression remains that Wallace never, at any rate never without some overpowering constraint, either did or permitted mere cruelty to any person. Hemingburgh's account of the episode at Hexham speaks volumes in his favour.

The regrettable inadequacy of historical criticism of Harry's poem prevents us, in the meantime, from illustrating the minor military qualities of Wallace. But, admitted that he was 'a man of vast military genius,' there is little necessity for detailed remarks on his care and consideration for his men; on his men's confidence in him and affection for him; on his sleepless vigilance, his high courage, his cool daring, his masterful rule, his resolute tenacity and endurance, his keen sense of honour, his singular unselfishness, his lofty magnanimity. Undoubtedly he did not lack that 'bit of the devil in him,' without which, according to Sir Charles Napier, 'no man can command.' Nothing in all Harry's panorama is more nobly touching, or more illuminative, than the fidelity of the men that stood closest to Wallace. Is it not true, though Harry says it, that, when Steven of Ireland and Kerly rejoined their lost leader in the Tor Wood after the annihilation of Elcho Park, 'for perfect joy they wept with all their een'? Is not the lament of Wallace over the dead body of Sir John the Graham on the field of Falkirk the true, as well as the supreme, expression of the profound affection and confidence that united the goodly fellowship of these tried comrades and dauntless men?

Burton, as we have seen, also acknowledges freely that Wallace was 'a man of vast political genius.' The particulars are most limited, and yet they are ample to ground a large inference. It will be sufficient to recall his endeavours, in the midst of warlike activity, to resuscitate industry and commerce, to reorganise the civil order, to secure the aid of France and Rome, to minimise the friction with the barons, and to observe and to enforce deference to constitutional principle. It is a striking testimony to his greatness of mind that he was absolutely destitute of ambition, as ambition is ordinarily understood. Emphatically he was a man that

'cared not to be great,
But as he saved or served the State.'

Even at the height of his power and popularity, he does not seem to have had the faintest impulse to seize the crown, or indeed to seize anything, for himself. Harry tells an extraordinary story, with a definiteness that commands attention, how he took the crown for one day, on Northallerton Moor, expressly and solely and most reluctantly 'to get battle.' Whether he could have taken the crown and held it—if he had so wished—need not tempt speculation. It is a singularly bright leaf in Wallace's laurels that there remains no shadow of evidence of any inclination on his part to swerve from the straight course of pure and unselfish patriotism.