Still, however, Wallace, though in obscurity, continued to exist in or near to Scotland, for all those seven years. At one time we hear, that he escaped over to France with a following of “five soldiers.” Some time after that, Langtoft tells us that “in moors and marshes with robbers he feedes.” During a large portion of these seven years, Scotland was in revolt against England. But not once, in all that time, do we hear of so much as a proposal to entrust any command to William Wallace. Nor does he appear to have been able, in all those years, to induce even a score of men to follow him in his fortunes. Never was there a more total collapse of suddenly‐acquired power. In modern times, indeed, we are often told of his having been “idolized by the people of Scotland.” But such eulogists close their eyes to many unquestionable facts which lead to a very different conclusion.
It is from the pages of the earliest Scottish histories that we learn of the prisons and the gibbets by which his power, at its zenith, was supported. At Falkirk he is first betrayed by two Scottish leaders, who reveal his plans to the king, and then he is deserted by the whole body of his cavalry. And, finally, it was by a Scotchman that he was at last given into his pursuers’ hands, and so consigned to the scaffold. But, though these circumstances show, undoubtedly, that many of his countrymen had no fondness for him, we confess that what weighs most with us is this, that after his discomfiture at Falkirk he continued to live the life of an outcast and fugitive for seven long years, in the mountain recesses of Scotland, without ever being asked, so far as history knows, to take the command of so much as a skirmishing party. Assuredly, there is no token to be anywhere discovered, that at this period, at least, there was any “idolatry” of Wallace on the part of the Scottish people; or any consciousness in their minds, that they had one of “the greatest of heroes” among them.
X.
PROLONGATION OF TROUBLES IN SCOTLAND—PARLIAMENTARY DISCUSSIONS IN ENGLAND, A.D. 1299–1302.
The rebellion commenced by Wallace had now been crushed, and that leader had been consigned to the obscurity from which he only emerged to ascend the scaffold; but the pacification of Scotland did not immediately follow. Edward had lost much of the elasticity of youth; the bloody fields of Stirling and Falkirk, and the ravage of Cumberland, in 1297, were not likely to make either Scotchmen or Englishmen more placable or friendly; and the disturbing elements introduced into the question by France, by the Papacy, and by a few discontented men at home, postponed for several years the final settlement of this now re‐opened question. We speak of it as “re‐opened,” for it was not long before two of the greatest lords in Scotland, who had submitted themselves and done homage to Edward in 1296, actually craved and obtained an audience, that they might entreat him to restore John Baliol to the throne again!—thus resigning, without any cause, all the results of the toils and conflicts of the past four years. Of all men living, Edward was one of the last to whom so irrational a proposal could, with any hope of success, be made.
But although the king’s mind could not thus easily be changed, a real obstacle to a restored and settled peace had been created by the late rebellion. It had been shown that by bringing together a few thousand men, all the English found in country parts and in open towns could be slain or driven away, many castles surprised or captured, and thus the hold of England upon Scotland reduced to the occupation of a few strong places. It had been shown also by the campaign of 1298, that even a mighty army, encouraged by a great victory, might find itself unable to re‐establish peace in Scotland. Edward had marched through the land, had found no enemy, and yet, as his army was not what in modern times we call a “standing army,” he could only, when the autumn appeared, disband his forces, leaving the kingdom still unsubdued.
The “great lords” of Scotland could not fail to discern in all this some hope of yet “preserving their independence.” We now know from experience that such an independence as they preserved, leaving room for frequent wars between Scotland and England (in which Scotland gained one victory and suffered seven defeats), was equally injurious to both countries; but the Scottish leaders had no such experience. Nor could the principal leader among them regard the question without being sensible of a deep personal interest in it.[102] If Scotland remained a separate kingdom, and if the Baliol family, now in exile, were set aside, then the next heir would be John Comyn. It was impossible that this fact could ever be absent from the minds of the Comyn family, then the most potent family in Scotland, or that it could fail to exert an influence on all their movements and decisions. Accordingly we hear, in 1299 and 1300, of a regency set up in Scotland, of which Comyn and Soulis were the principal members, and of embassies sent to both the king of France and the Pope, to ask their aid against the aggressions of the English.
Nor was this the only difficulty in Edward’s path. The two great earls, Hereford and Norfolk, still led what we now term “a parliamentary opposition,” and Edward could not call his “lords and commons” together, without being certain of meeting them, prepared to advance fresh claims, objections, and propositions. Hume, and, following him, Hallam also, have, somewhat hastily, given to this opposition of the two earls the praise of “patriotism;” but surely it was patriotism of a very equivocal character.
The earl of Norfolk was the high marshal, and the earl of Hereford the high constable of England. Very naturally, therefore, the king had looked to these two potent peers for support in any just quarrel. Had not Philip of France, by his seizure of Gascony, a great and important province, done to England an unquestionable and grievous injury? Would England in the present day submit to such a fraud and wrong? Would not the nation exclaim with one voice that such an aggression must be repelled? How, then, can we regard with anything like approval the conduct of the two earls in refusing to assist their sovereign in this his dire extremity?