having extricated itself from the morass; and they both attacked the Scottish shiltrons simultaneously. The shock was tremendous. The English cavalry was fully caparisoned and armed, and made desperate endeavours to break through the columns of the Scottish infantry; but were gallantly withstood. "They could not penetrate that wood of spears," says one of their historians. Their charges were repeatedly repulsed, notwithstanding that the Scottish horse, commanded by some of the nobles at variance with Wallace, either from mean jealousy towards him, or fear at the number and force of the English, did not come to the assistance of the infantry, but left the field without striking a blow. Edward then brought forward his numerous body of archers, a class of soldiers for which England was long celebrated, and who, as a proverbial illustration of the accuracy of their aim, were said to carry each twelve Scotsmen's lives under their girdle, because they generally bore twelve arrows in their belt. These by thick and incessant volleys dreadfully galled the Scottish columns. The archers on the Scottish side were a small but select body from the forest of Selkirk, 15 under the command of Sir John Stewart. In one of the charges, Sir John was thrown from his horse. His faithful bowmen crowded around him, and tried to rescue him; but in vain. They all perished; and their bodies were afterwards recognized by the English, as being the tallest and handsomest on the field. Still the infantry under Wallace did not give way, and still HIS sword flashed with terrific effect, amidst the throng of the English cavalry, and the unceasing shower of the English arrows. But the firm columns of the Scots were at length disunited by dreadful gaps of slain, and they could no longer withstand the overpowering numbers borne against them. Macduff and all his vassals from Fife were killed, and at last Sir John the Graham fell by the side of Wallace. To him, of all others, Wallace was particularly attached; and when he saw him fall, he plunged with tenfold fury into the thickest of his enemies, dealing with his irresistible arm death and destruction around him. It was impossible, however, that with the handful of men to which his army was now reduced, he could for any length of time successfully oppose the strength brought against him. He was obliged at last to make good his retreat, and gained a neighbouring wood, leaving fifteen thousand of his followers dead on the field.16 According to Blind Harry, Wallace, when the English had removed to Linlithgow, returned to the field of battle, in order to obtain the body of his friend, Sir John the Graham. This is somewhat countenanced by the fact, that Sir John lies buried in the church-yard of Falkirk, having the following inscription on his grave-stone, which has been several times renewed: MENTE MANUQVE POTENS ET VALLAE FIDVS ACHATES, Here lies Sir John the Grame, baith wight and wise, 1 The Foreste of Selkyrke in those days comprehended not only the tract now known by that name, but also the upper parts of Clydesdale and Ayrshire. 16 The accounts of the loss on the Scottish side at the battle of Falkirk are extremely various. Fifteen thousand is stated above, on the authority of two English Chronicles, viz. the Norwich Chronicle, and the Chronicle of John Eversden. It seems nearer probability than any other account. Some of the English historians make it more than the actual Trivet amount of Wallace's army: Walsingham, 60,000; and Hemingford, 50,000. makes it 20,000; and Buchanan 10,000. From these accounts we may, at all events, conclude with certainty, that the Scots suffered severely. There is no account of the English loss. Only two men of note are mentioned as having fallen on their side; Sir Brian de Jaye, and the prior of Torphichen. 17 His grace the duke of Montrose possesses an antique sword, on which is the following inscription: Blind Harry's description of the distress of Wallace, when he saw the body of his beloved friend and brother in arms, is touching in the extreme. The corse of Graym, for whom he murned maist, My afald freynd quhen I was hardest stad! The remains of the Scottish army, in their retreat, burnt the town and castle of Stirling. Edward, who had not recovered from the kick he received from his horse, took up his quarters for some time in the convent of the Dominicans there, which had escaped the flames; and sent a division of his army into Clackmannanshire, Monteith, and Fifeshire, who laid waste the country. He then marched to the west, through the district of Clydesdale to Lanark, and afterwards to Ayr, where he found the castle forsaken, and burnt by Robert Bruce. A want of provisions prevented Edward from pursuing Bruce into Galloway, as he intended. After capturing Bruce's castle of Lochmaben, he was constrained to march through Annandale into England, leaving Scotland only partially subdued, and ready to rise into a new revolt against him. Wallace, after the defent of Falkirk, feeling how little he was supported by the nobility, and how much jealousy and envy his elevation had occasioned, resigned the office of governor of Scotland, reserving to himself no other privilege than that of fighting against the enemies of his country, at the head of such friends as might be inclined to adhere to him. His resignation was fol lowed by the election of a regency, consisting, at first, of John Comyn of Badenoch, the younger, and John de Soulis; to whom were afterwards added, as partners in administration, Bruce, earl of Carrick, and William Lamberton, bishop of Saint Andrews. The first enterprise of the new governors was against the castle of Stirling, which Edward had left garrisoned. To preserve that important place from falling into their hands, Edward determined upon another expedition into Scotland, and with that purpose assembled his army at Berwick; but the English Sir Ione ye Grame, verry vicht and wyse, Nimmo's History of Stirlingshire. barons, to whom he had not confirmed certain privileges as he had promised, refused to go farther, urging the inclemency of the season, and the danger of a winter campaign. He was, therefore, obliged to abandon his design, and to allow the English, who were beleaguered in Stirling, to capitulate. In the course of the following year, (1300,) Edward, by confirming the charters of the barons, was enabled, once more, to prosecute his great object, the invasion and subjugation of Scotland. At the head of a great army, he entered the country by the western marches, and penetrated into Galloway. He was here met by a petition from the governors and community of Scotland, requesting that John Baliol, their lawful king, should be permitted to reign peaceably over them; but he rejected it with disdain. The Scottish army, now profiting by experience, confined itself to cutting off the supplies of the enemy; and Edward, after spending five months in the southern part of the country, without effecting anything material, found himself compelled, by the approach of winter, and the scarcity of provisions, to return to England. Before leaving Scotland, when no other alternative remained, he affected to listen to the mediation of France, and concluded a truce with the Scots, at Dumfries, 30th October, 1300, to endure till Whitsunday, 1301. Meanwhile a new competitor to the crown of Scotland arose in the person of his holiness, pope Boniface VIII. This singular claim had been suggested to the Roman see by certain Scottish commissioners, who wished his holiness to interpose in behalf of their distracted country. The arguments upon which it was founded, were altogether absurd, (such as, " that Scotland has been miraculously converted to the Christian faith, by the relics of St Andrew," &c.); but Edward's own pretensions were clearly and justly refuted. As it was dangerous for the English monarch to break with the pope at this time, owing to several continental arrangements, Edward laid the affair before his barons, who protested, with much spirit, that they would not allow the rights of their sovereign to be interfered with by any foreign potentate; and, to soothe his holiness, he sent him a long letter in his own name, not in the form (as he says) of an answer to a plea, but altogether extrajudicially;" wherein he enumerated all his claims to the superiority of Scotland, from the days of his "famous predecessor, Brutus, the Trojan," to his own. In the ensuing summer, as soon as the truce had expired, Edward, accompanied by his son, the prince of Wales, and a great army, marched again into Scotland, and spent the winter at Linlithgow, where he ratified another truce with the Scots, to endure until Saint Andrew's day, 1302, and soon afterwards returned to London. On the expiry of this second truce, having gained Pope Boniface over to his interest, he sent Sir John de Segrave, a celebrated warrior into Scotland, with an army of 20,000 men, chiefly consisting of cavalry. Segrave, when near Roslin, on his march to Edinburgh, separated his army into three divisions; the first led by himself, the second by Ralph de Manton, called from his office of pay-master the Cofferer, and the third by Robert de Neville. These divisions, having no communication established between them, were successively attacked and defeated at Roslin, on the 24th February, 1303, by a small body of 8000 horse, under the command of Sir John Comyn and Sir Simon Fraser. Ralph the Cofferer and Neville were slain. Segrave escaped, and fled, with the remains of his army, to England, leaving behind an immense booty. But while the Scots thus persevered in defence of their country, Philip le Bel, king of France, upon whose alliance they had confided, concluded a treaty of peace with Edward, (20th May, 1303,) in which they were not included; and the English monarch, being now freed from foreign wars, bent his whole force to make a complete conquest of Scotland, which had long been the ruling object of his ambition and exertions. His passions were now exasperated to the utmost by the repeated failures of his attempts, and he declared his determination either to subjugate it entirely, or to raze it utterly with fire and sword, and blot it out from existence in the list of nations. With this purpose, he marched into Scotland at the head of an army too powerful to be resisted by an unfortunate people, already broken down by the accumu lated miseries that attended their long continued conflict with an unequal enemy. The inhabitants fled before him, or submitted to his power, and his whole course was marked by scenes of slaughter, devastation, and ruin. The governor, Comyn, Sir Simon Fraser, and Sir William Wallace, with their fol. lowers, were driven into the fields and fastnesses of the country, from which they only issued in irregular predatory expeditions against detachments of the English. Edward continued his victorious progress as far as the extremity of the province of Moray, and the only fortress that opposed his course was the castle of Brechin, which, after an obstinate resistance, surrendered on the death of Sir Thomas Maule, its gallant commander, who was killed by a stone discharged from one of the besieging engines. Edward then returned to Dunfermline, where he spent the winter in receiving the submission of those who had not made their peace with him during his progress through the kingdom. Almost all the nobles gave in submissions. Bruce surrendered himself to John de St John, the English warden; and at last Comyn, the governor, and his followers, delivered themselves up to Edward, under a stipulation for their lives, liberties, and lands, and a subjection to certain pecuniary penalties. From this stipulation Edward excepted the following, as being more obstinate in their rebellion: Wishart, bishop of Glasgow, James, the Steward of Scotland, Sir John Soulis, the late associate of Comyn in the government of the kingdom, David de Graham, Alexander de Lindesay, Simon Fraser, Thomas Bois, and William Wallace. The bishop of Glasgow, the Steward, and Soulis, were to remain in exile for two years; Graham and Lindesay were to be banished from Scotland for six months; and Fraser and Bois for three years. "As for WILLIAM WALLACE," says the deed, "it is covenanted, that if he thinks proper to surrender himself, it must be unconditionally to the will and mercy of our lord the king." 19 Soon after, an English parliament was held at St Andrews, to which the king summoned all the Scottish barons and nobles. The summons was obeyed 19 Langtoft, in his Chronicle, says that Wallace proposed, on himself. These terms mark his bold and unsubdued spirit. was to throw him into a fit of rage. The passage is as follows: certain terms, to surrender Their effect upon Edward Turn we now other weyes, unto our owen geste, That he might yelde till him, in a forward And with his scrite full stable, and seled at the least, And none otherwise, als term tyme and stage by all, except Sir William Oliphant, Sir Simon Fraser, and Sir William Wallace. Oliphant held the castle of Stirling, and refused to capitulate. It was the only stronghold of Scotland not in the hands of the English; and Edward brought all his force to besiege it. Every engine known in those days was employed in the attack. After an obstinate defence for three months, of which the English historians speak with admiration, Sir William Oliphant and his little garrison were compelled to surrender at discretion. Fraser, too, despairing of further resistance, at last accepted the conditions of Edward, and offered himself up to the conqueror. WALLACE ALONE remained unsubdued, amid this wreck of all that was free and noble, standing like a solitary monument among the ruins of an ancient dynasty-destined then to be the emblem of his country's independence; now, to be its watchword, its pride, and its praise. Having gained the submission of the principal men of Scotland, and, in the capture of Stirling, reduced the last castle which had resisted his authority, Edward returned to England, in the pleasing conviction that he had, at length, finally accomplished the object upon which so much of the blood and money of England had been expended. Yet, while Wallace still lived, he felt his possession insecure; and he used every possible means to obtain the person of this his first, most dangerous, and uncompromising opponent. After the battle of Falkirk, and his resignation of the governorship of Scotland, little is authentically known of the particular transactions of Wallace. Great part of the time between 1298 and 1305, was no doubt spent in desultory attempts to annoy the English garrisons and migratory parties. But that a portion was also devoted to a visit to France, as has been related by Blind Harry, and disputed by subsequent writers,20 appears now to be equally certain; as a manuscript English chronicle, recently discovered by Mr Stevenson in the British Museum, speaks of such a visit, without the intimation of any doubt upon the subject. Wallace was probably induced to visit the French court, by a hope of obtaining some auxiliaries from Philip, for the purpose of carrying on the war against Edward; or, by a wish to urge the interests of Scotland, in the treaty which that monarch formed in 1303 with the English king, and in which Scotland was overlooked. Finding no success in either of these objects, he seems to have returned to his native country, to renew that partizan warfare, which was now the only method left to him of manifesting his patriotic feelings. That his deeds, however obscure, were of no small consequence, is shown by the eager solicitude which Edward evinced to secure his person, and the means which he took for effecting that end. Besides setting a great reward upon his head, he gave strict orders to his captains and governors in Scotland, to use every endeavour to seize him; and sought out those Scotsmen, who he had reason to think entertained a personal pique at Wallace, in the hope of bribing them to discover and betray him. Sir John de Mowbray, a Scottish knight, then at his court, was employed to carry into Scotland, Ralph de Haliburton, one of the prisoners taken at Stirling castle, with the view of discovering and seizing the deliverer and protector of his country. What these creatures did in this dishonourable affair, or with whom they co-operated, is not known; the lamentable fact alone re 20 In the present narrative, it has been our endeavour to go no further than the wellaccredited histories of both countries warrant ; and the numerous stories told by Blind Harry of the less conspicuous deeds of Wallace, are completely overlooked. It is the opinion, however, of the latest inquirer into the history of the period, Mr P. F. Tytler, an opinion formed upon apparently the best grounds, that the Minstrel writes with a greater regard to the truth, and makes a much nearer approach to it, than has been generally supposed. We are indebted for the information, now given for the first time, in confirmation of the story of Wallace's French expedition, to the personal kindness of Mr Tytler, who saw and copied the document alluded to in the text. |