Wallace now retired to the north, carrying with him, however, a considerable body of adherents, to whom additional numbers rapidly gathered, so that he soon found himself in a condition to recommence aggressive operations. Directing his force to the northeastern coast, he surprised the castle of Dunottar, cleared Aberdeen, Forfar, Brechin, and other towns of their English garrisons, and then laid siege to the castle of Dundee. While he was engaged in this last attempt, news was brought that the English army was approaching Stirling; upon which, leaving the siege to be carried on by the citizens of Dundee, he hastened to meet the enemy in the field. The result was the complete defeat and rout of the English, at the battle of Stirling Bridge, fought on September 11, 1297—a battle which once more, for the moment, liberated Scotland. The English were immediately driven or fled from every place of strength in the country, including Berwick itself.

Availing himself of this panic and of the exhilaration of his countrymen, Wallace pursued the fugitives across the border; and putting himself at the head of a numerous force, he entered England on October 18th, and, remaining till November 11th, wasted the country with fire and sword from sea to sea, and as far south as to the walls of Newcastle. It was during this visitation that the prior and convent of Hexham obtained from him the protection preserved by Hemingford. It is dated at Hexildesham (Hexham), November 7th, and runs in the names of "Andreas de Moravia, et Wilhelmus Wallensis, duces exercitus Scotiæ, nomine præclari principis Joannis, Dei gratia, Regis Scotia illustris, de consensu communitatis regni ejusdem," that is, "Andrew Moray and William Wallace, commanders-in-chief of the army of Scotland, in the name of King John, and by consent of the community of the said kingdom." The John here acknowledged as King of Scotland was Baliol, now in the hands of Edward, and living in a sort of free custody in the Tower of London. Wallace's associate in the command was the young Sir Andrew Moray, son of his faithful friend of that name, who had retired with him from the capitulation of Irvine, and who had fallen at the battle of Stirling Bridge.

One of the most curious of the few public papers in which the name of Wallace occurs was a few years since discovered by Dr. Lappenburg, of Hamburg, in the archives of the ancient Hanseatic city of Lübeck. It is a letter, in Latin, addressed to the authorities of Lübeck and Hamburg, informing them that their merchants should now have free access to all ports of the kingdom of Scotland, seeing that the said kingdom, by the favor of God, had been recovered by war from the power of the English. The letter is dated "apud Badsing tonam" (the true word, it has been suggested, is probably Haddingtonam), October 11, 1297, that is, a few days before the invasion of Cumberland and Northumberland. It is in the name of "Andreas de Moravia et Willelmus Wallensis, duces exercitis regni Scotiæ, et communitas, eiusdem regni"—like the Hexham protection—but without any mention of King John.

After his triumphal return from his incursion into England, Wallace assumed the title of Guardian of the Kingdom in the name of King John, whether formally invested with that dignity or only hailed as such by the gratitude of his countrymen. In a charter, printed in Anderson's "Diplomata," conferring the constabulary of Dundee on Alexander Skirmischur (Scrimgeour) and his heirs, and dated at Torphichen (in the county of Linlithgow) March 29, 1298, he styles himself, "Willelmus Walays miles, Custos Regni Scotiæ, et ductor exercituum ejusdem, nomine præclari principis Domini Johannis, Dei gratia Regis Scotiæ illustris, de consensu communitatis ejusdem." The grant is stated to have been made with the consent and approbation of the nobility ("per consensum et assensum magnatum dicti regni.")

But this supreme elevation did not last long. Supported only by his own merits and the admiration and attachment of his humbler fellow-countrymen, Wallace, a new man, and without family connection, would probably have found it difficult or impossible to retain his high place, even if he had had nothing more to contend with than domestic jealousy and dissatisfaction. Fordun relates that many of the nobility were in the habit of saying, "We will not have this man to rule over us." Meanwhile the energetic English king, who had been abroad when the defeat of Stirling Bridge lost him Scotland, had now returned home, and was already on his march toward the borders at the head of a powerful army. A body of English, which had landed in the north of Fife, led by Aymer de Vallois, Earl of Pembroke, is said by the Scottish authorities to have been attacked and routed by Wallace on June 12, 1298, in the forest of Blackironside, in that county; but when the two main armies met on July 22d, in the neighborhood of Falkirk—the Scots commanded by Wallace, the English by their king in person—the former, after a gallant and obstinate resistance, were at last forced to give way, and the battle ended in a universal rout accompanied with immense slaughter.

This defeat did not put an end to the war; but it was taken advantage of by the Scottish nobility to deprive Wallace of his office of guardian or chief governor of the kingdom. The Scottish accounts say that he voluntarily resigned the supreme power; it is certain, at any rate, that Bruce, his rival Comyn, and Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrew's, were now appointed joint guardians of Scotland, still in the name of Baliol. For some years after this our accounts of Wallace are slight and obscure; but he appears to have returned with a chosen band of followers to the practice of the desultory warfare in which he had originally distinguished himself. The legendary histories continue to detail his deeds of prowess performed in harassing the enemy both on their marches and in their camps and strongholds. And to fill up the story, they also make him to have paid two visits to France—the first in 1300, the second in 1302. The next well-ascertained fact regarding him is that when the Scottish leaders were at last obliged to submit to Edward at Strathorde, on February 9, 1304, Wallace was not included in the capitulation, one of the clauses of which (printed in the original French in Ryley's "Placeta Parliamentaria") is to the effect that as for Wallace (Monsieur Guillaume de Galeys), he might, if he pleased, give himself up to the king's mercy ("quil se mette en la voluntè et en la grace nostre seigneur le Roy, si lui semble, que bon soit"). He was soon after summoned to appear before a parliament or convention of Scotch and English nobility, held at St. Andrew's; and upon their not presenting themselves, he and Sir Simon Frisel, or Fraser, were pronounced outlaws. For some time his retreat remained undiscovered, although his active hostility still continued occasionally to make itself felt. A principal person employed in the attempts to capture him appears to have been Ralph de Haliburton; but how he was actually taken is not known. Sir John Menteith (a son of Walter Stewart, Earl of Menteith), to whose treachery his delivery to the English king is attributed by Blind Harry and popular tradition, appears to have really done nothing more than forward him to England after he was brought a prisoner to Dumbarton Castle, of which Menteith was governor under a commission from Edward.

On being brought to London, Wallace was lodged in the house of William Delect, a citizen, in Fenchurch Street; and on the next day, being the eve of St. Bartholomew, he was brought on horseback to Westminster, and in the hall there, "being placed on the south bench," says Stow, "crowned with laurel for that he had said in times past that he ought to bear a crown in that all," he was arraigned as a traitor, and on that charge found guilty, and condemned to death. After being dragged to the usual place of execution—the Elms, in West Smithfield—at the tails of his horses, he was there hanged on a high gallows, on August 23, 1305, after which he was "drawn and quartered." His right arm was set up at Newcastle, his left at Berwick; his right leg at Perth, his left at Aberdeen; his head on London Bridge. Wallace's daughter, by the heiress of Lamington, married Sir William Bailie, of Hoprig, whose descendants through her inherited the estate of Lamington.[Back to Contents]

ROBERT BRUCE
By Sir J. Bernard Burke, LL.D.
(1274-1329)

Robert Bruce was born in the year 1274, on the Feast of the translation of St. Benedict, being March 21st, and was undoubtedly of Norman origin. In an annual roll containing the names of those knights and barons who came over with William the Conqueror, we find that of Brueys; and from the Domesday Book it appears that a family of the same name were possessed of lands in Yorkshire. Coming down to a later period, 1138, when David I. of Scotland made his fatal attack upon England—fatal, that is, to himself and his people—the English barons, previous to the battle of Cutton Moor, near Northallerton, sent a message to the Scottish king, by Robert Bruce, of Cleveland, a Norman knight, who possessed estates in either country. Upon his death, this knight bequeathed his English lands to his eldest son, and those in Annandale to his younger, who received a confirmation of his title by a charter of William the Lion. From this root sprung Robert Bruce, the competitor for the crown with Baliol, whose grandson was the more celebrated Robert Bruce, the younger, Earl of Carrick in virtue of his mother's title, and afterward King of Scotland. He was the eldest of three brothers and seven sisters, whose marriages with some of the leading families of Scotland proved an important element of success to the future hero. His earliest years were passed at the castle of Turnberry, where his mother resided; but as he grew older, his father, who considered himself an English baron, thought proper that he should be removed to the English court. The friendship subsisting between Edward the First and the Earl of Carrick induced the former to adopt the earl's son; so that the confiding monarch trained up his mortal enemy in the use of those arts and weapons which were one day to be turned against himself.