En rex Edwardus, debacchans ut leopardus!
Olim dum vixit populum Dei maleflixit.
Nobis viæ talis comes ibis, care sodalis,
Quo condemneris, ut dæmonibus socieris.
Te sequimur voto prorsus torpore remoto.[91]
Meanwhile they drove him on with whips and scorpions. “Let us sing,” they said, “the canticle of death, beseeming this wicked soul; because she is the daughter of death, and food of fire unquenchable; the friend of darkness, and enemy of light.” And then they repeated En rex, &c.
While thus tormented by the evil spirits, he turned, said the knight, his trembling and bloodless visage towards me, as if to implore the aid which I was used to minister to him. But when voice and sense both deserted me, he cast upon me such a dreadful look, that while I live and remember it I can never more be cheerful. With that, he was in a moment swallowed up into the infernal pit, exclaiming in a doleful voice,
Heu cur peccavi? fallor quia non bene cavi.
Heu cur peccavi? perit et nihil est quod amavi.
Heu cur peccavi? video, quia littus aravi,
Cum sudore gravi mihimet tormenta paravi.[92]
Bannister was so terrified by this vision, that he forsook the world and its vanities, and, for the improvement of his life and conversation, spent his latter days in solitude.[93]
Scotland did not long languish in want of a deliverer. The place of Wallace was quickly filled up by one scarce his inferior in knightly renown, or in the affections of his countrymen. Were it not for the length of this article, we should willingly narrate some of the exploits and hair–breadth escapes which procured for Robert Bruce, even among the English, the reputation of being the third best knight in Europe; but we must hasten to conclude with the panegyric of the affectionate Bower.
“There is no living man who is able to narrate the story of those complicated misfortunes which befell him in the commencement of this war; his frequent perils, his retreats, the care and weariness, the hunger and thirst, the watching and fasting, the cold and nakedness, to which he exposed his person, the exile into which he was driven, the snares and ambushes which he escaped, the seizure, imprisonment, execution, and utter destruction of his dearest friends and relatives. And if, in addition to these almost innumerable and untoward events, which he ever bore with a cheerful and unconquered spirit, any man should undertake to describe his individual conflicts, and personal successes, those courageous and single–handed combats in which, by the favour of God, and his own great strength and courage, he would often penetrate into the thickest of the enemy,—now becoming the assailant, and cutting down all who opposed him; at another time acting on the defensive, and evincing equal talents in escaping from what seemed inevitable death;—if any writer shall do this, he will prove, if I am not mistaken, that he had no equal in his own time, either in knightly prowess, or in strength and vigour of body.”[94]