Cressingham, contemptuous and overweening, exclaimed to the earl, “Why
do we waste time? Let us pass on as becomes us, and do our duty!” The
earl, nettled at this imputation of backwardness, gave the order to
advance. As might have been expected, the result was disastrous. The
Scotch allowed a considerable body of the English to pass, and then,
while they were thus separated from the main force, and endeavouring to
form, a fierce attack was made, and in an instant all was in confusion.
One part of the Scotch army seized the bridge, while another part was
engaged in the slaughter of the disordered English. Many of these
leaped into the river and were drowned. Cressingham was among those who
had crossed. “His body,” says Mr. Tytler, “was mangled, the skin torn
from the limbs, and in savage triumph cut to pieces.” Wallace himself
ordered as much to be reserved for him as would make a sword‐belt.
The English were thus sacrificed to the folly of one man, who did
not survive to bear the blame. One knight only is recorded to have
distinguished himself. Sir Marmaduke Twenge, one of those who had
crossed the river, was urged by a companion to throw himself into the
stream in order to escape. “What!” exclaimed he, “volunteer to drown
myself when I can cut my way through them all! Never let such foul
slander rest on us!” “But alas for me!” said his friend, who was on
foot, and saw no such possibility of escape. “Leap up behind me,” said
Twenge, and so burdened he gave his horse the spur, drove him through
the midst of the enemy, and rejoined his friends in safety.
Earl Warenne, though brave and inured to arms, seems to have been
an impulsive man, who under defeat lost all self‐control. At Lewes,
in A.D. 1264, so soon as the ranks were broken, the earl was one of
the first to take to flight; and now, in like manner, horrified at
the massacre which he beheld on the opposite bank of the river, and
unable to remedy his fault, he gave the command of the retreat to Sir
Marmaduke Twenge, and rode off to Berwick. This sort of panic was even
more disastrous than his previous rashness, for in those days the
flight of the general implied the dissolution of the army.
The English chroniclers state the loss of the English at five thousand
infantry and one hundred horse, but in effect, when the earl left it,
the army was disbanded; and so soon as the fate of the day was decided,
but not before, “the earl of Lennox and the steward of Scotland,” says
Mr. Tytler, “_threw off the mask_, and led a body of followers to
destroy and plunder the flying English.”
Sir Walter Scott, with his usual talent and perspicuity, thus describes
the battle of Stirling: “The earl, an experienced warrior, hesitated
to engage his troops in the defile of a wooden bridge, where scarce
two horsemen could ride abreast; but urged by the imprudent vehemence
of Cressingham, he advanced, _contrary to common sense_, as well as
to his own judgment. The vanguard of the English was attacked before
they could get into order, the bridge was broken down, and thousands
perished in the river and by the sword.”[92]
Such was the battle of Stirling, the only victory which gives lustre
to Wallace’s name; and this, it is quite evident, was, it may be said,
laid at his feet; there being probably scarcely a man in his army who
did not see the English general’s blunder, or who would not, if in
command, have taken the same advantage of it.
At the head of a victorious army, Wallace was now obviously the ruler
of Scotland, and he instantly and without hesitation took this place.
No legal or constitutional delegation seemed to him to be necessary.
His dictatorship was established, probably by the “acclamation” of
his army, as in the days of imperial Rome. We do not feel entitled to
blame this step. Moments of exigency, as in France in our own day,
often call for unusual remedies; but as no one can point to any public
or national choice of Wallace as regent or dictator, we leave it as,
in all probability, the act of the army, such as it was; and we shall
presently see that between this “regent” and the lords and people of
Scotland, there was very little sympathy.
Of this crisis, October, 1297, Mr. Tytler thus speaks:—“The majority
of the nobles being still against him, Wallace found it difficult
to procure new levies, and was constrained to adopt severe measures
against all who were _refractory_. Gibbets were erected in each barony
or county town, and some burgesses of Aberdeen who had disobeyed the
summons were _hanged_. After this example, he soon found himself at
the head of a numerous army.”[93]
A force such as now followed the insurgent leader was obviously well
suited for a plundering expedition, or, to use the common phrase,
“a border raid.” Wallace led his force into England in October,
1297, and for the peculiar character of that inroad he must be held
personally responsible. Plunder would doubtless have satisfied most
of his followers, but he imparted to the war a character of unusual
ferocity. Again we will avoid using the bitter language of the English
chroniclers, and will draw our descriptions from Scottish writers only.
Fordun tells us, that “he wasted all the land of Allerdale with fire.”
Wyntoun adds;—
“All Allerdale as man of warre,
That time he brent with all his powre.
* * * * *
Wharever thai overtook the Inglis men,
Thai spared none, but slewe all down.”
Hector Boece says: “He brent and harried all Northumberland and
Newcastle.” “He took Dunotter and slewe all personnes found in it.”
The blind minstrel glories in the details of these deeds, telling us
“how Wallace burnt four thousand Englishmen in the kirk of Dunotter:—
“Some hung on crags right dolefully to die,
Some leapt, some fell, some fluttered in the sea;
No Southron was left in all that hold,
And all within they burnt to powder cold.”
And in his eighth book he tells us a similar tale of a castle
or mansion in Yorkshire, which Wallace blocked up and
set on fire:—
“Five hundred men that were into that place.
Got none away, but died withouten grace.”
The numbers of the sufferers in these two cases are doubtless augmented
by the license of the bard; but the important fact to be remarked is
this, that the narrations of the English chroniclers, and the charges
afterwards brought against Wallace by Edward himself, are substantially
confirmed and gloried in by these old Scottish traditions.
If we opened the English chronicles of the time, we should find them
teeming with horrid details of how Wallace “forced men and women to
dance naked before him, pricking them with lances and swords;” of how
he “slew infants at their mothers’ breasts”; of how he “burnt alive a
whole school full of boys.” “The Chronicle of Rochester” even displays
on its margin pictorial illustrations of these horrors. We allude to
them merely to observe that when his sentence, in 1305, ordered “that
his bowels should be taken out and burnt, even as he himself had burnt
a church full of men and women,” the judges only set forth, judicially,
a fact which was well known and entirely believed throughout all
Scotland and all England.
Nor do modern Scotch historians attempt to deny the ruthless character
of this inroad. The “Encyclopædia Britannica” frankly says: “He
proceeded as far as Newcastle, wasting with fire and sword, and
_sparing neither age nor sex_.” And Sir Walter Scott thus pithily
describes this march: “Increasing his forces that he might gratify them
with plunder, he led them across the English border, and sweeping it
lengthwise from Newcastle to the gates of Carlisle, _he left nothing
behind him but blood and ashes_.”
History from the earliest period, through all the ravages of Huns and
Vandals, down to the cruelties of a Tamerlane or a Nana Sahib, records
few, if any, deeds of greater savageness than this one great exploit
of Wallace’s life. And it was the main feature of his brief career. The
victory of Stirling was thrown into his lap; at Falkirk he was merely
beaten and annihilated, but in this march through northern England he
showed his whole character. His panegyrist says:—
“The host
Began at Tweed and spared nought they found.
* * * * *
All Durham town they burnt up in a gleed.
* * * * *
For prisoners they liked not to keep;
Whom they o’ertook, they made their friends to weep.”
Sir Walter’s pithy sentence expresses the whole. The horde of
miscreants whom Wallace led, must have come upon many aged, many
infants, many sick—upon schools and nunneries. “They left nothing
behind them but blood and ashes.” And yet English writers, not a
few, have been found, who, after reading these facts, have actually
expressed surprise and indignation that the leader of this inroad, when
at last apprehended, should have been put to death on the scaffold![94]
This terrible inroad occupied Wallace and his followers during
several weeks. But the enjoyment was incautiously prolonged. Before
any arrangements had been made for a return to Scotland, “winter set
in with great severity. The frost was so intense and the scarcity of
provision so grievous, that multitudes of the Scots perished from cold
and famine, and Wallace ordered a retreat.”[95]
In useless revenge for this inroad, lord Robert Clifford collected a
force in Cumberland and invaded Annandale. A few villages and hamlets
were burned, and about three hundred Scots were slain. It was to put an
end to this wretched state of things, by making England and Scotland
one people, that Edward had been labouring for several years past.
Wallace had now returned to Scotland; and in Scotland, in spite of all
“the great lords,” he continued to be the ruling spirit for all the
first half of the year 1298. Probably it is to the opening months of
this year that we must assign a circumstance narrated by Mr. Tytler,
who says: “Soon after his return from this expedition into England,
Wallace, in an assembly held at the Forest Kirk in Selkirkshire, which
was attended by the earl of Lennox, William Douglas, and others of the
principal nobility, was elected “governor of Scotland.”[96]
The place chosen was one more adapted to secrecy than to the
transaction of any important affair;[97] the persons present, whose
names are produced, _are but two_. The phrase added: “and others of
the principal nobility,” refutes itself. The support of the principal
nobility was what Wallace most needed; and it is quite certain that,
if any other of this class had been present, his name would have
been carefully recorded. There is no fact on which all the Scottish
historians are more entirely agreed than this: that, “through envy,
the lords and great men of Scotland kept aloof from Wallace.” Could
any numerous gathering of them have taken place at this time, it is
quite certain that they would never have chosen the second son of a
Renfrewshire yeoman to be “governor of Scotland.”
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;
* * * * *
Thairfore Wallace, without any demand,
* * * * *
Syne for thair treasoun hangit tham ilkane” [every one].
We know not whether words could more plainly express the fact that a
tyranny was established in Scotland in this earlier portion of the year
1298. And the most singular feature of the case is, that a man who,
in April, 1297, was utterly unknown, establishes, before a twelvemonth
had passed over, such a despotic power that “the greatest lordes in the
land” were forced to bow down to him, or else to go to the prison or
the gallows!
But now the end of this extraordinary kind of rule was approaching.
It had been, from first to last, an empire of the sword; and when
that sword was broken, it instantly collapsed and disappeared. Edward
was duly informed, in October, of the disastrous affair of Stirling;
and, relying on the speedy termination of the war with France, he
sent over, in November, a summons for a military rendezvous at York,
on the 14th of the coming January. Such a summons, to be answered at
such a period of the year, was no ordinary one. To call men, by tens
of thousands, to leave Kent, and Devon, and Warwickshire, in the very
middle of the winter, and to march to York, with the declared intention
of thence proceeding to Scotland, was of itself a proof of the depth
and earnestness of the king’s purpose. But the manner in which this
call was answered, showed that the people of England sympathized with
their sovereign. The story of Wallace’s invasion, with all its horrors,
had been carried through the length and breadth of the land; and the
feeling which it had aroused was shown in the astonishing fact, that,
in the short dark days of January, there marched into York no fewer
than 100,000 foot‐soldiers and 4,000 cavalry. England has now six
times the population it had then; but who would expect that, if our
government were, in the present day, to call for a voluntary armament,
and to issue that call in November, the result would be the appearance
at York, on the 14th of January, of a force of 600,000 infantry, and of
24,000 horse? And yet the means of locomotion known in our day would
make it far easier to do this now than it was in 1298, to send the
smaller number. But could such a mighty gathering be seen, in England’s
northern metropolis, on the 14th of the coming January, would not the
natural, the reasonable exclamation be, “England is stirred to its very
depths”?
The king, however, found it impossible to leave the Flemish coast so
soon as he had intended. He learned, too, that the Scottish invasion
was over, and that Wallace and his followers had returned to Scotland.
He would not run the risk of a second “battle of Stirling,” and he
therefore sent orders to his generals at York to engage in no important
action till he returned. Hence, they contented themselves with
relieving the castles of Kelso, Roxburgh, and Berwick, which had been
threatened by Wallace, and then, keeping a small force in Scotland,
dismissed the remainder to their homes. Of the movements of the
Scottish leader himself at this period, we hear nothing.
It was not until the spring was opening, that Edward was able to get
clear of his continental entanglements. On the 21st of March he landed
at Sandwich, where he was received with great acclamations;—all men
feeling that on his sagacity, judgment, and military skill, the peace
and safety of the realm of England at that moment greatly depended. His
first thought on landing, was, to remember his governing principle,
_Pactum serva_. He had promised his people, when he left them in
the preceding autumn, that for any wrongs done, or goods taken, by
his officers or purveyors for the service of the war, he would make
them full amends. At once, therefore, immediately on landing, he
directed commissions to issue to two knights and two churchmen in each
county—one to be named by the crown and the other by the people, who
were to inquire in each district what goods had been taken by the royal
purveyors for victualling the king’s fleet or army. These commissions
were issued in the first week in April; that is, in a very few days
after the king’s landing.
The next step was, to issue summonses, on the 10th of the same month,
for a parliament to be held at York in Whitsun week. These summonses
were promptly obeyed. A great meeting took place, and thither came the
two earls, Hereford and Norfolk, as they had done the year before;
not to help forward the great question, of how Scotland should be
quieted, but to prefer, as they had preferred in the preceding
year, their demands for a fresh confirmation of the charters. Their
own personal grievances had precedence in their minds over all the
pressing exigencies of the state. The king, after reigning with perfect
justice and equity for twenty years, had recently been forced to make
“requisitions” for the carrying on of the war. The validity of such
demands seemed to these two great lords a matter of more importance
than French aggressions or Scottish inroads.
The king refused to enter upon such discussions at that moment, but
he authorized the earls of Gloucester, Warenne, and Warwick, and the
bishop of Durham, to pledge his honour and their own, that so soon as
Scotland had been quieted, he, the king, would do all in his power to
give them satisfaction. This sort of mediation succeeded, and the two
discontented earls agreed to postpone the charter‐question till the
rebellion should have been suppressed. It was agreed, therefore, to fix
the 25th of June for a military rendezvous, on which day all the earls
and barons engaged to bring their forces to Roxburgh, the appointed
place of meeting.
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.