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.
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.
Footnotes:
[82] That the name was, in his own day, _William Walays_, is a fact
concerning which there is no room for doubt. The _Scalachronica_
(recently printed by the Maitland Club of Glasgow), was written by
one who personally knew the Insurgent leader, and he always writes
the name _Walays_. Hemingford and Langtoft, two of the best English
historians of that day, always write it _Walays_. In the “Wallace
Documents,” printed by the Maitland Club, a Charter is given,
granted by the Insurgent leader himself, and there the name stands
_Walays_. A century later, Andrew Wyntoun, one of the earliest and
best of the Scottish historians, writing about A.D. 1420, always
speaks of _Walays_. Other writers, following the sound only, write
of _Walais_, or _Waleis_. But when many other names suffered
change—Botteville into Botfield, and De Moleyns into Mullins—Walays
also was corrupted into “Wallace.” So entirely has this corruption
rooted itself in our English literature, that we shall feel
compelled to yield to it, and shall use, in the following pages,
the customary name of “Wallace.”
[83] Lewis on “Roman History,” p. 16.
[84] Hemingford, Trivet, Matthew of Westminster, Wykes, Rishanger,
Langtoft, Knighton, the Chronicles of Lanercost, Rochester, St.
Alban’s, Abingdon, etc.
[85] Tytler’s History of Scotland, vol. i., p. 134.
[86] History of Scotland, vol. i., pp. 126, 127.
[87] Tytler’s Scottish Worthies, pp. 172, 184.
[88] Tytler’s Scottish Worthies, p. 186.
[89] “Wallace Documents,” p. 30.
[90] Chalmers’ Caledonia, vol. i., p. 659.
[91] Macfarlane’s History of England, vol. iv., p. 54.
[92] History of Scotland, vol. i., p. 72.
[93] Hist. of Scotland, vol. i., p. 142.
[94] A recent writer, Mr. Pearson, expresses a doubt whether
these acts of unusual cruelty are sufficiently established by
evidence. This incredulity is hardly reasonable. Several English
writers who lived at the time assert the facts; all Scottish
historians, Fordun, Wyntoun, Boece, and Blind Harry, confirm the
statement,—some in general, others in specific terms; and the
charges deliberately read to the prisoner in Westminster Hall, with
the sentence passed, surely may be regarded as leaving no room for
doubt.
[95] Tytler, Hist. Scotl., vol. i., p. 143.
[96] Ibid, p. 146.
[97] Selkirkshire, at the present, has about 9,800 people in the
whole county. In 1298 it probably had not 2,000.
[98] Cronykyl, viii. 13.
[99] Tytler, vol. i., p. 142-147.
[100] Tytler, vol. i., p. 163.
[101] Hume, chap. xiii.
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?
Refuse, however, they did; and not only so, they withstood and
obstructed him in every stage of the controversy. And now, when the
troubles in Scotland were not yet over, and the dispute with France
was still undecided, the two earls attended every parliament, not to
assist their sovereign, but to advance and urge against him new demands.
Hume, and, following him, several other historians, have represented
Edward as striving to escape from the obligations of Magna Charta, and
the two earls as “patriotically” insisting on its maintenance. Scarcely
could misrepresentation be carried further than this.
From the very commencement of his reign, Edward, far from manifesting
any desire to withdraw from the provisions of “Magna Charta,” had shown
a willingness and a desire to go far beyond it. De Lolme justly remarks
of that great document, that “it had only one article calculated for
the interest of that body which was the most numerous in the kingdom.”
It was, in fact, nothing more than an agreement between the great
barons and the crown, for the future regulation of their respective
rights and immunities. But Edward’s legislation, from the outset, had
taken a far wider range. “The whole commonalty of the realm” was never
absent from his thoughts. His statutes were made, and made most freely
and voluntarily, “for the common weal, and for the remedy of all that
were aggrieved.” In every statute passed in Edward’s reign, the purpose
is manifest: not to evade or limit the operation of “Magna Charta,” but
to go far beyond it.
What was the drift and meaning, then, of these contentions between the
two earls and the king, which extended over three or four years, and
which perplexed and harassed Edward during a very difficult period
of his reign? It may be described in a very few words. Disliking
the war with France in 1297, the earls withdrew themselves from any
participation in it. But they wished also to withhold all aid either
in money or in stores; and therefore they objected to the “prises
and talliages” which the king’s officers had made. They desired “the
charters” to be so confirmed and enlarged, as to deprive the king of
the power of making “requisitions,” except under the express authority
of parliament. Now, this limitation has been, doubtless, one of great
value to the people, and for insisting upon it, the earls have been
extolled as “patriots.” But if we reflect on the matter for a few
moments, we shall see that the concession required of Edward was one
which it might well seem difficult for him to make.
“Requisitions” and “forced loans” have been heard of in Europe for
centuries after Edward’s time; nor have they quite ceased even to the
present hour. Yet in his day, the power of taking what was imperatively
needed for war‐purposes was far more necessary than it is now. A nation
in the present day, on finding itself involved in war, has recourse
to its banks and to its credit, and speedily provides itself with all
that it finds needful. And yet, even now, “requisitions” are sometimes
heard of. But in the thirteenth century, standing armies, and loans,
and national debts were all alike unknown. A king, suddenly deprived,
as Edward was, of a noble province, found it necessary to raise and
equip and victual an army, as rapidly as possible; and his only
resource was, to convene a parliament and to ask an aid, which aid it
would require months to collect. Edward, therefore, had been forced to
revive and call into exercise certain old rights or prerogatives of
the crown, and to “take” what he needed; promising, of course, to pay
for all he took, so soon as he should be able. This power the earls
now desired to limit, or to abolish; and it cannot be questioned that
such a limitation or abolition was a great gain to the people. Edward’s
ground for hesitation, doubtless, was twofold. He always wished, and
claimed, to leave the crown as potent as he found it. “Saving the
rights of the crown of England” is a phrase which we often hear from
his lips. And besides this, he might justly fear, lest the sovereigns
of England, thus fettered, should be unable, in future years, to meet
the aggressions of France as they required to be encountered.
The present Regius professor of Modern History in the University of
Oxford has well and forcibly remarked, that “this great monarch was
not likely to surrender without a struggle the position which he had
inherited. For more than twenty years he reigned as Henry II. had
done, showing proper respect for constitutional forms, but exercising
the reality of despotic power. He loved his people, and therefore did
not oppress them; they knew and loved him, and endured the pressure
of taxation, which would not have been imposed if it had not been
necessary.” “Until he is compelled by the action of the barons, he
retains the substance of royal power: the right to talliage the towns
and demesnes of the crown without a grant. Edward would not have been
so great a king as he was, if he had not thought this right worth a
struggle, nor if, when that struggle was going against him, he had not
seen that it was time to yield; nor if, when he had yielded, he had not
determined honestly to abide by his concessions.”[103]
There had been no new claim, or any stretch of the royal prerogative.
We have already seen, that Mr. Hallam, who greatly praises the two
earls, admits that “hitherto the king’s prerogative of levying money by
name of ‘talliage’ or ‘prise’ from his towns or tenants in demesne had
passed unquestioned.”[104] The king, therefore, had done nothing more
than bring into use an old right of the crown, which up to this time
had never been disputed.
The two earls, however, disliked the war with France, and they
disliked, very naturally, the “prises and talliages”—the requisitions
of money, corn, and cattle—to which the king found it necessary
to resort. They made these levies a matter of complaint in 1297,
presenting to the king a remonstrance or complaint just before his
embarkation for Flanders. When called to a parliament in Edward’s
absence in the autumn of that year, they again brought forward this
grievance of the king’s war requisitions; and in that parliament a
new confirmation of the charters was adopted, in which all “prises
and talliages” were forbidden, unless levied with the consent of
the prelates, barons, knights, and burgesses. And, ever careful of
themselves, the two earls added another document, by which the king
was to grant a full pardon to them “for all manner of offences which
they may have committed.” These two documents were accepted by the
king while he was in Flanders, and now, in Lent, 1299, he meets his
parliament again in Westminster. Again the earls revive the question
of the charters, adding now a further demand for a new survey or
“perambulation” of the royal forests.
The king granted the required confirmation of the charters, adding,
however, the words, “salvo jure coronæ.” This proviso displeased the
earls, and they quitted the parliament in anger. But Edward really
wished for peace and unity at home, and, to content them, he held
another parliament after Easter, in which he granted the confirmation
of the charters unreservedly.
This “reserving the rights of the crown” has been censured by some
writers, as if it betokened some equivocation on Edward’s part, but
such a device was alien to his whole nature. A more frank or outspoken
man is not to be found on any page of history. What he said he always
really meant. It had been a ruling principle with him, from the very
beginning of his public life, that he would not leave the realm of
England, or the crown of England, diminished or lowered through any
fault or neglect of his. This principle forced him, “slow as he was to
strife,” into a war for the recovery of Gascony. He would not have it
said of him in future times that he, by hesitation or want of energy,
lost England’s noblest foreign possession. The same resolve had carried
him into Wales and into Scotland. In each case he believed himself to
be asserting the ancient rights of the crown of England, and through
all his legislation the same thought continually appears. His first
great statute closes with these words: “And forasmuch as the king
hath ordained these things to the honour of God and holy church, and
for the common weal, and for the remedy of such as be aggrieved, he
would not that at any other time it should turn to the prejudice of
himself or his crown, but that _such rights as appertain to him_ should
be saved in all points.” So also, when deciding the question of the
Scottish succession, he does not forget that he himself is descended
from Matilda, daughter of Malcolm Canmore, king of Scotland; and he
notices this in his judgment, declaring “that John Baliol ought to have
seizin of the kingdom of Scotland, _reserving_, however, _the right
of the crown of England_, whenever he or his heirs shall see fit to
assert it.” So also in the parliament of Lincoln, in 1301, we find him
desiring those who attended it to settle the perambulation‐question,
“so that their oaths and the oath of the king as to the rights of the
crown may be saved.” Thus, at every turn we find him regarding “the
rights of the crown” as a sacred trust committed to him, and which he
had sworn to defend; and hence, in every concession made to him by the
people, he is always ready to use the phrase, “salvo jure coronæ.”
The other claim made by the two earls, for a new perambulation (or
survey) of the forests, opened a controversy of some duration; and we
shall find it convenient to reserve it for a distinct chapter. But,
besides these controversies, one main business of the session was, to
receive from the king a statement of the result of the arbitration of
pope Boniface, to whom, in the autumn of 1297, both kings had agreed
to refer all matters in dispute. The pope’s award had been given; and
a treaty with the king of France had been signed. Peace was to be
restored between the two countries; Gascony was to be given back to
England; and Edward was to marry Margaret, the sister of the king of
France; while his son was to obtain the hand of Philip’s daughter,
Isabel. In fine, all lands, territories, and goods were to be restored
to their owners; compensation being made for waste or damage.
Such was the pacification agreed upon between the two kings, and now
made known by Edward to his parliament. But even while that parliament
was sitting, Philip made two further demands or applications. The first
was, that John Baliol, the late king of Scotland, should be set at
liberty. Edward felt no difficulty on this point, only stipulating that
the ex‐king should not meddle in any way with the realm of Scotland.
This proviso could not trouble or annoy Baliol; for he had, not long
before, declared his resolution never again to set foot in a country
“in which he had experienced so much malice, fraud, treason, and
deceit.”[105]
The second point urged by Philip was, that the Scotch should be allowed
a truce of seven months—a request to which Edward, having other matters
in hand, felt no difficulty in acceding. In truth, one affair which
he was very desirous of bringing to a conclusion, was his own marriage
with the princess Margaret, Philip’s sister. He had now been a widower
for more than eight years; and a lonely life after a happy wedlock
of such long continuance, did not at all suit a man of so ardent and
sincere a temperament. Peter tells us how, two or three years before
this, while returning from Scotland,—
“On fell things he thought, and wext heavie as lead,
How chances ’gainst him foughte, and that his queen was dead;
His solace all was ’reft, now she from him was gone.”
And shortly after this, he began to make inquiries, first as to the
princess Blanche of France, and then as to her sister Margaret. The
latter princess became, at last, his choice, and she was brought over
by the duke of Bourgogne, landing at Dover on the 8th of September. The
king, with the courtesy which never forsook him, went to meet her, and
at Canterbury, in the cathedral, on the 10th of September, 1299, the
marriage was celebrated; the archbishop himself officiating. A large
number of foreign as well as of the English nobility were present.
Queen Margaret, like her predecessor, seems to have been entirely
evoted to her great consort. Like Eleanor, even in war she was always
near the king, and his attentions to her were unremitting. Thus, of the
Scottish campaign of 1301, Langtoft writes:—