To wirschip ther isles,[87] and lere of his wiles, how well that he sped.
It is not to drede, traytour sall spede,[88] als he is worthi,
His lif sall he tyne, and die thorgh pyne, withouten merci.
Thus may men here, a lad for to lere, to biggen in pays.[89]
It fallis in his eye, that hewes over high, with the Walays.
Langtoft’s Chronicle of Edw. I.
“The day after his arrival at London, he was brought on horseback to Westminster, the mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen, and many others, both on foot and horseback, accompanying him; and in the greate hall at Westminster, he being placed upon the south bench, crowned with laurel, for that he had said in times past, that he ought to bear a crowne in that Hall (as it was commonly reported), and being appeached for a traytor by Sir Peter Mallorie, the king’s justice, hee answered, that he never was traytor to the king of England, but for other things whereof he was accused, he confessed them, and was after headed and quartered.”[90]
His head was set up at London, his quarters were sent to Newcastle, Berwick, Perth, and Aberdeen. But Edward reaped no advantage from this act of cruelty and injustice, except the gratification of his implacable temper. If intimidation was his object, it failed, as was to be expected in the case of a high–spirited people: and the only effect of raising these ghastly trophies was to inspire a deeper hatred of the tyrant who commanded them, and of the treacherous minister of his revenge. The latter long continued to be an object of especial hatred to the Scottish nation; and is condemned to shame in its traditional literature under the fitting title of the “false Menteith.”
Here, it might be supposed, history must end, and the ultimate destiny of the oppressor and oppressed, the tyrant and his victim, remain a mystery until the time when all things shall be brought to light. But the patriotic chronicler before quoted, who probably could not bear that the last scene of his hero should be one of suffering and degradation, undertakes to enlighten our curiosity on this subject. We read in the continuation of Fordun by Bower, that, according to the testimony of many credible Englishmen, “an holy hermit, being rapt in the spirit, saw innumerable souls delivered from purgatory marshalling the way, while the spirit of Wallace was conducted to heaven by angels, in reward of his inflexible patriotism. To whom the proverb may be applied, ‘The memory of the just with praise, and the name of the wicked stinketh.’”
Soon after, he proceeds to illustrate the latter clause of the proverb. When Edward died upon his march to Scotland, an English knight, Bannister by name, upon the night of his decease, saw in a trance his lord the king, surrounded by a multitude of devils, who were mocking him with much laughter, and saying,