14. Capture of Wallace.—Wallace had been on the Continent ever since the battle of Falkirk. He now came back and was betrayed by his servant Jack Short to Sir John Menteith, governor for Edward in Dunbarton Castle, and was sent by him to London. He was there tried, by a special commission, for treason and rebellion against Edward. He pleaded in his own defence that he had never sworn fealty to Edward. In spite of this he was found guilty, condemned to death, and hanged, drawn, and quartered according to the barbarous practice which was then coming into use in England. His head was stuck up on London Bridge, and the four parts of his body were sent to Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling, and Perth, by way of frightening the people from such attempts in future.
15. Attempted Union.—Edward then set to work to complete the union of the two kingdoms. In the meantime Scotland was to be governed by a Lieutenant aided by a council of barons and churchmen. It was to be represented in the English parliament by ten deputies,—four churchmen, four barons, and two members of the commons, one for the country north of the Firths, one for the south. These members attended one parliament at Westminster, and an ordinance was issued for the government of Scotland. John of Bretayne was named Lieutenant for the King; justices and sheriffs were appointed; the strongholds were put under governors for the King, and an inquiry was ordered into the state of the laws in order to take measures for their amendment. Edward's policy in all this was to win favour with the people and the members of the council, although many of them, such as Bruce and Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, had taken part in the last rising. The King's peace was now offered to all rebels who would profit by it. But the great difficulty in dealing with the Scots was that they never knew when they were conquered, and, just when Edward hoped that his scheme for union was carried out, they rose in arms once more.
16. Bruce's Revolt.—The leader this time was Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, Earl of Carrick in right of his mother, and the grandson and heir of the rival of Balliol. He had joined Wallace, but had again sworn fealty to Edward at the Convention of Irvine, and had since then received many favours from the English king. Bruce signed a bond with William Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrews, who had also been one of Wallace's supporters. In this bond each party swore to stand by the other in all his undertakings, no matter what, and not to act without the knowledge of the other. The signing of such bonds became a prominent and distinctive feature in the after-history of Scotland. This bond became known to Edward; and Bruce, afraid of his anger, fled from London to Dumfries. There in the Church of the Grey Friars he had an interview with John Comyn of Badenoch, called the Red Comyn, who, after Balliol and his sons, was the next heir to the throne. He was the grandson of a younger sister of Balliol's mother, and the son of Balliol's sister. He had also a strong claim to the favour of the people in his alleged descent, through Donald Bane, from their ancient Celtic kings. What passed between them cannot be certainly known, as they met alone, but Bruce came out of the church saying he feared he had slain the Red Comyn. Kirkpatrick, one of his followers, then said, he would "mak sicker," and ran in and slew the wounded man. By this murder and sacrilege Bruce put himself at once out of the pale of the law and of the Church, but by it he became the nearest heir to the crown, after the Balliols. This gave him a great hold on the people, whose faith in the virtue of hereditary succession was strong, and on whom the English yoke weighed heavily.
17. Coronation at Scone.—On March 27, 1306, Bruce was crowned with as near an imitation of the old ceremonies as could be compassed on such short notice. The actual crowning was done by Isabella, Countess of Buchan, who, though her husband was a Comyn, and, as such, a sworn foe of Bruce, came secretly to uphold the right of her own family, the Macduffs, to place the crown on the head of the King of Scots.
18. Edward's proposed Revenge.—Edward determined this time to put down the Scots with rigour. Aymer of Valence, Earl of Pembroke, succeeded John of Bretayne as Governor. All who had taken any part in the murder of the Red Comyn were denounced as traitors, and death was to be the fate of all persons taken in arms. Bruce was excommunicated by a special bull from the Pope. The Countess of Buchan was confined in a room, made like a cage, in one of the towers of Berwick Castle. One of King Robert's sisters was condemned to a like punishment. His brother Nigel, his brother-in-law Christopher Seton, and three other nobles were taken prisoners, and were put to death as traitors. This, the first noble blood that had been shed in the popular cause, did much to unite the sympathy of the nobles with the commons, who had hitherto been the only sufferers from the oppression of the conquerors. Edward this time made greater preparations than ever. All classes of his subjects from all parts of his dominions were invited to join the army, and he exhorted his son, Edward Prince of Wales, and 300 newly-created knights, to win their spurs worthily in the reduction of contumacious Scotland. It was well for Scotland that he did not live to carry out his vows of vengeance. He died at Burgh-on-the-Sands, July 30th. His death proved a turning-point in the history of Scotland, for, though the English still remained in possession of the strongholds, Edward the Second took no effective steps to crush the rebels. He only brought the army raised by his father as far as Cumnock in Ayrshire, and retreated without doing anything.
19. Bruce's Struggles.—For several years King Robert was an outlaw and a fugitive, with but a handful of followers. Their lives were in constant danger. Whenever an opportunity offered, they made daring attacks on the English in possession; at other times they saved their lives by hairbreadth escapes from their pursuit. The Celts of the west and of Galloway, who had been won over to the English interest, were against them, and the Earl of Buchan, husband of the patriotic Countess, and his kinsman, Macdougal of Lorn, were Bruce's most deadly enemies. At one time Bruce had met with so many defeats that he left Scotland and thought of giving up the struggle and going to the Holy Land. Tradition says that the example of a spider stirred him up to fresh courage and endurance. He was in hiding in the island of Rachrin, off the north coast of Ireland. As he lay one morning in bed in the wretched hut in which he had taken refuge, he saw a spider trying in vain to throw its web across from beam to beam of the roof above his head. The insect tried six times and failed. Bruce reckoned that he had been beaten just six times by the English. He watched eagerly to see if the spider would try again. "If it does," thought he, "so will I." Once more the spider made the attempt, and this time it was successful. Bruce took it as a happy omen, and went back to Scotland. He joined some of his followers in the Isle of Arran. From the island they went to the mainland, and from that time the tide of fortune seemed to turn, and to bring him good luck instead of bad. Still he had to go through many perils. The story of his exploits has been handed down to us by John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen. As he was born soon after Bruce's death, there may be some truth in the tales which he tells, though it must be borne in mind that they are but tales. He describes Bruce as a strong, tall man, so cheerful and good-humoured that he kept up the spirits of his followers no matter what mishaps befell them, always first in danger, and often owing his life to his own wit and daring. One of his best known feats happened in the country of John of Lorn. Three Highlanders, who had sworn to take his life, set upon him when he was quite alone. One seized his horse's bridle; another tried to take his foot out of the stirrup; the third, leaping on him from behind, tried to unhorse him. Bruce cut them all down and rode off triumphant. His brooch had come loose in the struggle, and was ever afterwards kept as a precious relic in the family of his enemy Macdougal of Lorn. The first decided success of Bruce was the defeat of his old enemy, the Earl of Buchan, who with his followers joined the English, and forced Bruce to right near Inverary. Bruce won the day, and his followers so spoiled the lands of the Comyn that this fray was long remembered as the "Herrying of Buchan." At length the clergy recognized Bruce as their King, and this virtual taking off the excommunication had a great effect upon the people. The little band of patriots increased by degrees. The strongholds were won back, till at last only Stirling was left to the English, and it was so sorely pressed that the governor agreed to give it up to the Scots if he were not relieved before St. John Baptist's Day, 1314. Roused by the fear of losing this, the most prized of all Edward the First's conquests, the English gathered in great force, and marched 100,000 strong to the relief of the garrison.
20. Battle of Bannockburn, June 24, 1314.—The Scots were posted so as to command the plain or carse of Stirling, which the English must cross to reach the Castle. They were greatly inferior to the English in numbers, and had scarcely any cavalry, in which the chief strength of the English force lay. Robert divided them into four battles or divisions. Their leaders were Sir James Douglas; Randolf, his nephew; James the Stewart, and Bruce's own brother Edward. Bruce himself commanded the fourth division, which was placed behind the others, as in it were the men he least trusted, and a small body of cavalry. One flank of the army rested on the Bannock, a small stream or burn, from which the battle took its name. Before the battle joined, as King Robert was reviewing his line, he was challenged to single combat by Henry of Bohun, an English knight, and raised the spirit of his followers by cleaving his adversary's skull. The English began the fight by a volley of arrows, but their archers were dispersed by the small body of the Scottish horsemen whom King Robert sent to charge them. The English cavalry then charged the Scots, but they tried in vain to break the compact bristling masses of the Scottish spearmen, and themselves fell into confusion. Some Highland gillies and camp-followers just then appeared on the brow of a neighbouring hill. The English took them for a reserve of the enemy, were seized with terror, fled in wild disorder, and the defeat became a total and shameful rout. The horsemen in their flight fell into the pitfalls which the Scots had cunningly sunk in the plain. King Edward and 500 knights never drew rein till they reached Dunbar, whence they took ship for Berwick. Great spoil and many noble captives fell that day to the share of the victors.
21. Results of the Victory.—By this battle, won against tremendous odds, the Saxons of the Lowlands decided their own fate and that of the Celtic people by whose name they were called, and to whose kingdom they chose to belong. On the field of Bannockburn they gave the English a convincing proof that they preferred sharing the poverty and turbulent independence of that half-civilized Celtic kingdom to rejoining the more wealthy, prosperous, and settled country from which three centuries before they had been severed. Three more centuries were still to pass before Edward the First's great idea of a Union could be carried out. Bannockburn is noteworthy among battles as being one of the first to prove the value of Wallace's great discovery that footmen, when rightly understood and skilfully handled, were, after all, better than the mounted men-at-arms hitherto deemed invincible. Like Morgarten and Courtray, the fields on which the Flemings and the Swiss about the same time overthrew their oppressors, this victory of the Scots stands forth as a bright example, showing how, even in that age of feudal tyranny, a few men of set purpose, fighting for their common liberty, could withstand a great mass of feudal retainers fighting simply at the bidding of their lords.
22. Bruce's Comrades.—The faithful friends of Bruce, those who had shared his dangers and helped him to win his crown, were no way behind their leader in courage and heroism. The most famous of them all was James of Douglas, son of that Douglas who had been the friend and supporter of Wallace. His own Castle of Douglas was the scene of one of his most daring deeds, hence called the Douglas Larder. The English held his castle, but on Palm Sunday, when the garrison were gone to church, Douglas attacked them suddenly, killed some, and took the rest prisoners. He and his men then went up to the castle, where they feasted merrily on the fare that was being made ready for the English. When they had dined, Douglas bade them bring forth all the provision of food and fuel and pile it up in the castle hall. He then killed the English prisoners and flung their bodies on the heap. Over them he poured their store of wine, which mingled with the blood that still streamed from their gaping wounds. The Scots then set fire to the whole and went off to the woods again, for the free vault of heaven was more to their minds than the constraint of castle walls. All these stories are only tales; but, whether true or not, they show the spirit of the time.
23. Summary.—In this chapter we have seen how Scotland lost her independence by the selfish quarrels of her nobles and the weakness of her King John Balliol; how the rising of Wallace, the first effort for regaining her ancient freedom, was confined solely to the people without the nobles; how it came to nothing from the want of unity of purpose in the nation; how Scotland, after the failure of this attempt, had lost her separate national life and had been united to England; how, when all hope seemed lost, the people rose under a leader who was really a Norman baron, and therefore as much a foreigner to them as any of the governors placed over them by Edward; and how by one great effort they shook off the yoke of the invaders and drove them from the soil.