Wallace, however, having an armed force at his back, and a vehement will in his bosom, accepted this alleged “choice” and appointment, and readily assumed and exercised despotic power. The weight of his right arm is fully admitted by all Scottish writers. Fordun, one of the earliest, says: “If any of the great men would not, of his own accord, obey his mandates, him he held and confined until he wholly submitted to his pleasure.” Wyntoun writes:
“The grettest lordes of our lande
To him he gert them be bowand;
Ild thai, wald thai, all gert he
Bowsum to his bidding be:
And to his bidding who was not bown,
He took and put tham in prisoun.”[98]
Nor was imprisonment the sole means of persuasion to which he had recourse. Hector Boece tells us that “he made sic punition on tham whilk war repugnant to his proclamation, that the remanent pepil, for fear thairof, assisted to his purpose.” And again—
“That samin time thair was that made imploy,
Men in the north that would not him obey;