The Life and Reign of Edward I.

by Robert Benton Seeley

Wallace had now been lost sight of in England for nearly half a year. The ravaged districts of the north were beginning to resume their accustomed appearance, and the fierce resentment of the English people had found time to subside. Yet, when Midsummer came, a great army assembled around the king. The infantry were eighty thousand, but the cavalry had augmented its numbers to seven thousand, of whom three thousand were in full armour. Bearing in mind that the approaching harvest would require most of the available hands in the kingdom, this muster of men taken from the field and farmyard was quite as remarkable as that of the previous January.

This powerful army was now in Scotland. But where was Wallace? The Scottish writers all confess that “the great majority of the nobles were against him.”[99] Force of all kinds he had employed—setting up gibbets, and throwing into prisons all “who would not him obey.” But even the strongest measures of this kind were not sufficient to gather round him an army with which he could venture to march against the English. He took, therefore, the more prudent course of retiring as Edward advanced, wasting the country in his retreat. The English army was thus forced to rely wholly on its own resources; while, as no living thing crossed its path, its commanders were unable to learn anything of the movements of the insurgent leader. Edward marched on through Berwickshire to Lauder and Temple Liston. The castle of Dirleston was taken, and two smaller forts; but provisions grew scarce, and the Welsh troops seemed about to mutiny. “Let them go over to the enemy if they will,” said Edward, with his usual intrepidity. “I hope to see the day when I shall chastise them both.” But the prospect darkened; means of subsistence became more and more unattainable, and a retreat began to be seriously contemplated. Just then, however, Wallace’s unpopularity with his own countrymen saved the English army from an impending failure. The earl of Dunbar and the earl of Angus, hating the so‐called “governor of Scotland,” but fearing to take an open part against him, sent an emissary to acquaint the king that Wallace and his army were concealed in the forest of Falkirk, and that they were watching his movements, in the hope of surprising the English army by a night attack.

Edward heard these tidings with the utmost joy. “Thanks be to God!” he exclaimed, “who has hitherto extricated me from every danger! They shall not need to follow me; for I will instantly go to meet them!” Without a moment’s delay, orders were given for the march. Very soon the whole army was in motion, wondering at the sudden change. It was late before a heath near Linlithgow was reached, on which the army encamped for the night. “Each soldier,” says Hemingford, “slept on the ground, using his shield for his pillow; each horseman had his horse beside him; and the horses tasted nothing but cold iron, champing their bridles.” The king fared like the rest. In the night a cry was heard. The page who held the king’s horse had been sleepy, and the horse, in changing his position, had trodden upon and hurt the king. Some confusion ensued, but Edward had not been fatally injured; and soon, as the morning was near, he gave orders for the march. They passed through Linlithgow a little before sunrise, and on a ridge of a hill, a little before them, they saw a number of men with lances. It was a portion of Wallace’s army. He now could no longer adhere to his policy of retreat; the pursuit of the English cavalry would evidently render such a course disastrous. He was thus brought to a stand, and had no choice but to accept the battle. As the English troops ascended the hill, they came in sight of the whole Scottish army, hastily preparing for the expected attack.

Wallace made the best arrangement, perhaps, that was in his power. His men were, for the most part, armed with the long Scottish lance; and he drew up the main body of his infantry in four squares, called in those days “schiltrons.” Between these squares were posted the archers; while a thousand horse waited in the rear, for any opportunity which might arise for an onset.

The king, equally energetic and prudent, having now made an engagement secure, proposed to give his army time for rest and refreshment; but the cry of the troops, officers, and men, was for an immediate attack. “In God’s name, then,” said the king, “be it so;” and at once the earl marshal, and the earls of Hereford and Lincoln, led their troops forward. But they soon found that the Scotch had availed themselves of a marsh in their front, and the attacking force was thus forced to diverge to the left. The second line, under Anthony Beck, inclined to the right; he wished to wait for the king, who brought up the third line, but the eagerness of the men could not be restrained. They pressed forward, and soon came to close quarters with one wing of the Scots, while the earl marshal’s force confronted the other.

And now a singular event occurred—a fact which can only be explained by that secret dislike which all the Scotch writers admit to have been felt by “the great men” for Wallace. The whole body of the Scottish cavalry rode off the field without striking a blow. All the Scottish historians agree as to this circumstance; and it can only be rendered intelligible by our previous knowledge that Wallace had recruited his army by strong coercive measures.

The main body of the Scottish army, however, had no such power of flight. Their leader, several histories tell us, exclaimed, “I have brought you to the ring; now dance as ye can!” It was evident as to the thirty thousand or forty thousand of the Scottish infantry, that their only hope was to stand their ground, and fight to the last. And this they did, as for centuries since then they have always done. To break their phalanx, or in any way to overcome them, was, evidently, no easy task. But the king was prepared for all the exigencies of war. He ordered up his bowmen, every one of whom was accustomed to boast that he carried twelve Scottish lives in his quiver. Under their ceaseless and destructive discharge, the Scottish “schiltrons” soon quivered and shook. Their firmness and obstinacy was of no avail; the English arrows filled the air, until their squares were crowded with the dead and dying. Soon all was confusion and distress, and then, when their ranks became unsteady, the terrible onset of the armour‐clad horse of Edward’s army followed; the squares were broken up, and only a crowd of wretched fugitives remained. Stewart and Macduff had fallen, but Wallace himself had escaped. The Scottish historians confess a loss of fifteen thousand men. The English report, as we find it in a dozen contemporary writers, was, that the Scots lost thirty‐two thousand men, while the whole loss of the English was twenty‐eight! This, at first sight, appears wholly absurd and incredible; but when we remember that the Scottish cavalry had fled the field; that the “schiltrons” were shaken and broken up by the English bowmen, and then, that in their retreat they were followed, trodden down, and slaughtered by seven thousand English horsemen—it is not difficult to understand, that the loss of the victors must have been very small, while the havoc made among the flying Scots must have been of the most fearful description.

The Scottish army of revolt was, in fact, annihilated. Some of its leaders fled to Stirling, and, adhering to the settled plan of the campaign, they burned the town before they evacuated it. A Dominican convent, however, was left standing, and here Edward remained for more than a fortnight, to recover from the effects of the hurt in his side. Some of the chroniclers aver, that two ribs had been broken by the horse’s tread. If this was indeed the case, it would furnish another proof of the ascendancy of a strong will over merely physical hindrances. This period of rest having terminated, the king put his forces in motion, and proceeded to St. Andrew’s and Perth. But no enemy was to be found. The power of Wallace had been annihilated. He again betook himself to his “recesses and hiding‐places.” The king marched onwards, through Fife and Clydesdale, and Lanark, and Galloway, and, finding no enemy to be encountered, he returned in the autumn through Selkirkshire to Carlisle, where he dismissed his army. The earl marshal and the constable were again discontented, because the king had granted the isle of Arran to a Scottish nobleman without consulting them. To meet these complaints, the king held another council or parliament at Durham in the autumn, in which he granted to some of his nobles the estates of those Scottish proprietors who had taken part in the late disturbances. And thus the strife or civil war of 1298 seems to have reached its termination.

As to the chief promoter of these disturbances, it is clear beyond all dispute, that the battle of Falkirk, in July, 1298, put a final end to his brief career. His first appearance on the page of history, was in May, 1297, and he vanishes from it in August, 1298. “Wallace,” says Mr. Tytler, “soon after the defeat of Falkirk, resigned the office of guardian of Scotland.” “The Comyns threatened to impeach him for treason, for his conduct during the war; and the Bruces united with their rivals to put him down.”[100] “His name does not occur in any authentic record, as bearing even a secondary command; nor do we meet with him in any public transaction” until his trial and execution seven years afterwards. So agree “the Wallace Documents” of the Maitland Club, in which we are told that “immediately after the defeat which he sustained at Falkirk in 1298, he disappears from history, and no traces of him are found until a very short time before the execution in 1305.” It is, therefore, a fact quite beyond any dispute, that the whole history of this greatly‐lauded leader is comprised within a period of fourteen months. The representations of Hume and others, that “through a course of many years”[101] he fought the battle of Scottish independence, are wholly at variance with the known facts.