A Popular History of England, From the Earliest Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria; Vol. I

by François Guizot

Stirling was seriously threatened by the insurgents, when the Earls of Surrey and Cressingham advanced with large forces. The two parties occupied the opposite banks of the Forth; Wallace's position was excellent, and he was offered terms. "Tell your masters," he replied to the envoy, "that we are not here to parley, but to assert our rights and to deliver Scotland. Let them advance, we are ready." The English hesitated. Surrey deemed the attack dangerous, but Cressingham, like a true financier, was complaining loudly of the ravages made upon the king's treasury by an army which did not fight, and the general yielded. At daybreak, on the 11th of September, 1297, the English army began marching across the bridge. It was narrow, and the soldiers passed over it slowly. When one portion of the army had crossed, Wallace caused the bridge to be occupied by a detachment, and he attacked the English, who had not yet had time to form in order of battle. The slaughter was fearful. Among the dead bodies was found Cressingham, who was odious to the Scotch by reason of the severity of his administration. His savage enemies flayed him, in order to preserve his skin in remembrance of their revenge. Surrey retreated with the remainder of his forces. But Wallace's success had delivered Scotland for the time being; the castles were surrendering in every direction; the popular champion entered Northumberland and pillaged the English territory, while famine kept him away from Scotland. When he reappeared in his country, laden with plunder, an assembly of noblemen awarded to him the title of governor of the kingdom and commander-in-chief of King John's forces. Baliol, still imprisoned in England, smiled bitterly at this use of his name.

Meanwhile, King Edward had recrossed the sea, and his orders for the levying of a large army had preceded him. In the eyes of the conqueror of Scotland the insurrection led by Wallace was a rebellion, not a patriotic movement. Scarcely had he set foot in England than he marched towards the North. Having halted for a while at York, where he was to have convened a Parliament, the barons who had formerly placed themselves at the head of the popular resistance came and met him to demand the ratification of the concessions granted at Ghent. "By and by," cried Edward; "I have no leisure time just now; I must first of all reduce the Scotch rebels to obedience." And he swore before three bishops that he would occupy himself with the liberties of his English subjects when he should have riveted the chains of his Scottish subjects. Bigod and Bohun were satisfied with this promise, and followed him into Scotland.

The king's vessels were delayed. He was detained between Edinburgh and Linlithgow, when an insurrection broke out in his camp. The Welsh troops threatened to leave him and to go over to the Scotch. "I care little," said Edward, "if my enemies join my enemies; I will punish them all in one day." The provisions began to run short, and a retreat was spoken of, when the Bishop of Durham was warned, on the 10th of July, 1298, that the Scotch army was encamped in the forest of Falkirk, and was preparing to attack the English troops. "Glory be to God," cried Edward. "He has delivered me up to the present from all dangers. They need not follow me, for I will go to them." And, raising his camp, he marched against the Scotch troops. It is related that, during the night before the battle, being asleep by the side of his horse, the king had two ribs broken by a kick from the animal. This circumstance created a profound sensation throughout the army; it was said that the king was dying through some treachery. Edward donned his armor, mounted his horse, and continued the march. The Scotch army was at length in sight. In front of them was a marsh, and the archers and pikemen were protected by a palisade. When Wallace saw the lances of the enemy glistening in the sun, he called out to his men, "I have led you to the dance, now hop if you can." The Scottish infantry valiantly withstood the shock of the two army corps led by Bigod, Bohun, and the bellicose Bishop of Durham, but the cavalry were terrified on seeing the superior forces of the English, and fled in confusion. The pikemen and archers began to give way; the palisades were trampled down, and the victory was complete. The field of the battle of Falkirk was strewn with the corpses of the Scottish soldiers, when Wallace contrived to fall back upon Stirling with the remainder of his army. The English followed him there; but they found the town burnt. Wallace had disappeared. King Edward was desolating the country by fire and sword; the inhabitants of the towns were flying at his approach; St. Andrew's was deserted when the king set fire to it. The citizens of Perth burnt their own town. Provisions were now scarce; Edward was obliged to retreat towards the end of September, 1298, leaving all the north of Scotland in the hands of the patriots, who had just constituted a council of the regency, at the head of which was John Comyn. Scarcely had the king crossed the frontier when his enemies threatened Stirling Castle.

Other troubles awaited Edward in England; he had convoked the Parliament at Westminster for the month of March, 1299; the barons claimed the fulfilment of his promises, and the ratification of the new liberties added by them to the Magna Charta. The king still delayed, denying the validity of a confirmation made in a foreign country; he experienced, he said, displeasure at finding himself thus pressed to grant a favor against his inclination. The barons, however, insisting, the king left London, almost secretly, and went into the country under pretence of being indisposed; the barons followed him there, renewing their demands. At length the king, wearied of this, sent to the Parliament the required ratification; but, with a puerile want of good faith, he added to the concessions so hardly won this little sentence: "Saving the rights of the crown." The barons, indignant, left London in their turn, but to prepare for resistance. The king still reckoned upon the devotion of the people of the city; he ordered the sheriffs to cause the charter to be read at the cross of St. Paul's; an immense crowd was assembled, hailing with applause each of the clauses which guaranteed the rights of the people; but when the reader came to the phrase, "Saving the rights of the crown," his voice was drowned by whistling, shouting, and loud menaces. Edward was too shrewd and sagacious to resist the will of the people when expressed in such an unmistakable manner; he convened a fresh Parliament, solemnly ratified all the concessions, without mentioning the rights of the crown, and nominated a commission of three bishops, three earls, and three barons, to prepare a charter limiting the royal forests, which had hitherto been extended at times into private property. This charter was ratified in the year 1300. Bohun had just died; but Bigod was still alive, and the victory was definitively assured to the Barons, in spite of the efforts which the king was still making to deliver himself from a yoke which was insupportable to his haughty character and his ambitious projects.

The marriage of King Edward with Margaret of France had taken place, as had also his son's betrothal to Isabel (September, 1299), and two little incursions into Scotland had produced no other result than an intervention on the part of Pope Boniface VIII. in favor of the Scotch, by virtue of the rights which he claimed over that kingdom. Although haughtily refusing to recognize this strange pretension, the King of England had three times granted a truce to the insurgents. The third had just expired, when the treaty of Montreuil, made between England and France on the 30th of May, 1303, gave up Guienne to Edward, who abandoned his Flemish allies as Philip the Fair did his Scottish allies. Freed from care on the score of continental affairs, Edward, on the day following the ratification of the treaty, marched into Scotland. He was already at Edinburgh on the 4th of June, and his progress across the northern counties resembled a triumphal march; all the fortresses opened their gates; Buchan Castle alone remained closed. While the English were attacking, Sir Thomas Maule, the governor, was marching up and down the ramparts, with a handkerchief in his hand, wiping off the dust raised by the battering-rams. On the twentieth day of the siege he was struck with an arrow, and, when dying, stigmatized the soldiers as cowards, who were asking permission of him to surrender. Scarcely had the valiant champion breathed his last when his castle was given up to the English forces. The king established himself in winter quarters in the abbey of Dunfermline, and it was there that the Scotch barons came to negotiate for peace; each one had drawn up his own conditions. Wallace had disappeared since the battle of Falkirk; the noblemen had supplanted him in the government of the country, which he had delivered without their aid. The king caused a proclamation to be made that the outlaw should surrender at discretion. Wallace, however, took no notice, but remained in the mountains. The Castle of Stirling now alone offered any resistance, in spite of the injunctions of the Scottish Parliament assembled by Edward. Sir William Oliphant, who commanded it, was compelled to surrender on the 26th of July, 1304.

A last blow was about to strike the patriotic party in Scotland. Wallace, betrayed by his friend Monteith, was delivered into the hands of the English in the month of August, 1305. King Edward had not the generosity to pardon the proud patriot who had so long resisted him. Wallace had broken no oath; he had never sworn allegiance to King Edward, and he had fought for the independence of his country, but he was nevertheless condemned to suffer a traitor's death. He was executed at Smithfield, on the 23rd of August, and the portions of his dismembered body were sent to different towns in Scotland, where, however, the people were more inclined to treat them as sacred relics than to consider them as emblems of disgrace. Wallace had kindled a fire which was not destined to die out, and it was in vain that Edward had thought to stifle it by severe punishment.

Bruce Warned By Gilbert De Clare.

Scarcely had the government of Scotland been constituted by a commission of prelates and Scottish barons, pursuing their labors in London in conjunction with the English members of Parliament, when a fresh insurrection broke out in Scotland. A new chief presented himself for the cause of independence, one who was destined to achieve the task begun by Wallace; it was Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick.