spoken of three, or even of four conquests of Scotland. But, strictly
speaking, the term can only be applied to his first march through the
kingdom, in 1296; and his last great expedition, in 1303-4. On both of
these occasions the land was thoroughly possessed and quieted; and when
Edward returned to England, he left not behind him, in all Scotland, in
the open field, one declared foe. Our present chapter will be given to
the description of the second of these two progresses.
In the spring of the year 1303 it began to be apparent that both the
pope and the king of France, having no real care or concern for the
Scots, would at last withdraw that support which they had hitherto
given to the discontented in that country. Philip was anxious to be
at liberty to devote his whole attention to the affairs of Flanders;
and he readily agreed to a treaty which was made in the course of this
spring, by which Edward was restored to the possession of Gascony,
without any proviso or stipulation on behalf of the Scotch. No such
treaty was required in the case of the pope. Boniface had already done
all that he had promised or intended to do in behalf of that people. He
had interfered in their favour, and had gained them a respite of one
or two years—but permanently to quarrel with such a prince as Edward,
in favour of a poor and distant nation like Scotland, was altogether
foreign to his interest, as well as to his inclination.
The pope, then, having manifested his views, by addressing a letter to
the Scotch bishops, enjoining on them a peaceful and dutiful demeanour
towards the king of England, and the treaty with Philip having been
fully agreed upon, Edward felt himself, at last, at liberty to turn his
undivided attention to the affairs of Scotland; and, with his wonted
decision of character, he resolved to bring all questions, in that
country, to a termination by one sufficient and well‐considered effort.
On the 20th of January he wrote from his castle at Guildford, to more
than twenty of his chief barons, desiring them to proceed, with their
whole power, to the aid of John de Segrave, the governor of Scotland,
who was about to march from Berwick to Edinburgh, and whom he, the
king, intended shortly to join.
Before Edward, however, could reach Scotland, Segrave, like earl
Warenne at Stirling, had allowed himself, by carelessness and
over‐confidence, to be surprised and defeated. He had commenced his
march towards Edinburgh with a force of about 20,000 men. But these
he had formed into three divisions; and these divisions marched on
at a considerable distance from each other, and without keeping up
any proper communication. Comyn, one of the so‐called “regents,” and
Sir Simon Fraser, lay between Segrave’s force and Edinburgh, with
about 8,000 men. They doubtless had good intelligence of Segrave’s
movements, and of the disposition of his forces. Very naturally, and
very judiciously, they made a night‐march, and took the first division
of Segrave’s force by surprise, at the dawn of day; routing and
dispersing it, and taking many prisoners. Shortly afterwards the second
division came in sight, and the Scotch, still superior in numbers,
and exulting in success, attacked and defeated it also. The third
division, under Sir Robert Neville, had met with the fugitives from the
first two engagements, and were thus warned in time; and they repulsed
the Scotch, and recovered some of the prisoners.[117] Still, on the
whole, “the battle of Roslyn” was a serious defeat for the English, and
hastened Edward’s journey into Scotland, which he reached soon after
Easter.
In this engagement at Roslyn, one of the king’s officers, called “Ralph
the Cofferer,” was taken prisoner by Sir Simon Fraser. He offered a
large ransom; but Fraser himself “first struck off the hands of the
unhappy priest, and then severed his head from his body.”[118]
This same Fraser afterwards craved Edward’s mercy, and received it, on
condition of leaving the country. This promise, like almost every other
engagement made at that time by Scotchmen, was unblushingly violated,
and Fraser was again found in arms against that sovereign who had
already granted him his life. He was taken and executed as a traitor,
and his execution is one of those which are said to “brand Edward’s
memory with the charge of cruelty.” The position, in fact, which is
taken by most Scottish writers, seems to be this: that these men,
because they were in arms for “independence,” were entitled to commit
any atrocity that they pleased; but that, when the fortune of war went
against them, it was Edward’s duty to grant them, at least, a free
pardon, and in some cases a reward!
The momentary advantage gained by the Scotch at Roslyn had no influence
on the fate of the campaign. Edward arrived in Scotland soon after
Easter, having summoned his military tenants to meet him at Roxburgh
by Whitsuntide. He then passed on to Edinburgh “without challenge or
interruption,” in the early part of June. He himself marched up the
eastern side of the kingdom, having given his son the command of a
division which proceeded along the western coast. Having been warned,
by the experience of the last four years, of the difficulties created
by the devastating system, the king had now made ample provision, and
his fleets accompanied his march with abundant supplies. From Edinburgh
he proceeded, by Linlithgow and Clackmannan, to Perth. But this march
involved the passage of the Forth—the attempt to pass which river had
occasioned earl Warenne’s defeat at Stirling. Lord Hailes and Mr.
Tytler differ as to Edward’s plans. Hailes says—“The Scotch fondly
imagined that Edward would attempt to force the passage” of the narrow
bridge, as Cressingham had done. “But the prudence of Edward frustrated
their expectations. Having discovered a ford at some distance, he
crossed the river at the head of his whole cavalry.”[119] This ford, it
will be remembered, had been mentioned to earl Warenne in 1297, by Sir
Richard Lundin. Mr. Tytler, however, thinks that “Edward did intend to
pass the river by the bridge; which, on his arrival, he found had been
destroyed by the Scots.” He observes that, “had the leaders profited by
the lesson taught them by Wallace, they would have kept up the bridge,
and attacked the English when defiling over it.”[120]
A singular notion Mr. Tytler must have had of the sagacity of a
commander of whose military skill he often speaks with admiration,
to suppose it possible that he could have repeated the folly and
misconduct of Cressingham and Warenne, with the lamentable results
of which he was so well acquainted. It is true, indeed, that Edward,
prepared for all contingencies, would have passed the river by _a_
bridge, if the fords had been found impracticable. Peter Langtoft
explains the whole transaction:—
“Counsel he had of one, a bridge he should wrihte (erect),
Boats and barges ilkon, with flukes to make them tighte,
The Scottish sea to pass, _if that he had neede;_
That passage never was, he rode over on his steede.
The Scots they saw him coming, and fleeand fast they did,
Moors and mountains over, away they drive for dread.”
This plan of a pontoon‐bridge was not new to the king. The strong
rings and bolts by which he proposed to make fast a bridge over the
Menai Strait, twenty years before this period, are even now to be
traced on the banks of that water.[121] He doubtless, therefore, was
prepared to take a similar course again, if it should be needful;
but he could scarcely have been left in ignorance of Sir Richard
Lundin’s suggestion. And a ford having been pointed out, “the king,”
says Mr. Tytler, “forded the river in person, at the head of his
cavalry, and routed or dispersed the last remnant of a Scottish army.”
Langtoft’s description, however, is the more picturesque of the two;
it was written at the time, and it corresponds exactly with the
flight—admitted on all hands—of the Scottish cavalry at Falkirk. To
repeat his words:—
“The Scots they saw him coming, and fleeand fast they did,
Moors and mountains over, away they drive for dread.”
This was the last attempt at opposition in the open field. From Perth
the king proceeded to Dundee, and Brechin, and Aberdeen. The castle of
Brechin delayed him three weeks. It was naturally strong, and it had
a stout commander—Sir Thomas Maule. But he was struck down by a stone
from one of the king’s engines; and on his death the garrison at once
capitulated.
From Aberdeen Edward marched on to Kinloss in Moray. Some English
writers of the time assert him to have even reached Caithness. He may
have embarked in some vessel of his fleet, and in that way have visited
the coast; but lord Hailes’ remark seems a rational one, that in those
days the country to the north of Ross‐shire was of small account, and
it seems improbable that the king should have carried an army into
those remote districts. But having thus traversed the land, and found
no enemy to abide the push of lance, Edward returned, in the autumn, to
Dunfermline, where he took up his quarters for the winter. The Scots
were now pretty generally satisfied of the hopelessness of any further
resistance. Wallace, indeed, was somewhere hidden; but we hear nothing
of a single valorous deed done by him; and none of the Scotch appear to
have expected anything from his sword. The barons and other proprietors
were now rapidly making their submissions, and being “received to the
king’s grace;” and, in the course of his residence at Dunfermline, this
pacification became almost universal. Peter Langtoft says—
“The towns, and the counties, and the people all aboute,
To the king fell on knees, his power did them loute.
Unto his peace they yield; fealty to him did sweare;
Truly with him to hold; no arms against him beare.”
Matthew of Westminster says—“The nobles of Scotland, their error having
met with stern defeat, submitted themselves to the will of the king of
England, and he admitted them to his favour, treating them with great
mercy, inflicting merely certain fines, and allowing them time for
payment.”
Christmas arrived, and Edward, as his manner was, gathered his family
round him. Langtoft says—
“To Dunfermline he went; for rest will he there:
For the queen he sent, and she did dight her chare: (cheerfully.)
From Cawood she glent (passed) to Dunfermline to fare.”
Two or three of the rebel leaders, besides Wallace, still held out, but
they were now reduced to great extremities. Langtoft says—
“The lord of Badenoch, Fraser, and Waleis,
Lived at theeves’ law, and robband always.
They had no sustenance, the war to maintaine;
But skulked upon chance, and robbed all betwene.”
The few nobles, however, who yet stood out, could not allow themselves
to sink to the level to which Wallace had fallen. They saw the
necessity for an absolute and final termination of this great struggle.
Accordingly, on the 9th of February, 1304, “the earls of Pembroke and
Ulster, with Sir Henry Percy, met Comyn at Strathorde, in Fife, and a
negotiation took place, in which the late regent and his followers,
after stipulating for the preservation of their lives, liberties, and
lands, delivered themselves up, and agreed to the infliction of any
pecuniary fine which the conqueror should think right. The castles and
the strengths of Scotland were to remain in the hands of Edward, and
the government was to be administered at his pleasure.”[122]
Those who thus made their peace with the king, saving both their
lives and their estates, probably performed their part, of entire
submission, honestly. But there was a single instance of obstinate
resistance, which, in its result, places in a strong light Edward’s
patient forbearance and his clemency: and yet, like many other actions
of his life, it is perverted by some writers into a proof of his want
of generosity.
The treaty made by Comyn and his coadjutors was the final submission
of that which assumed to be the Scottish government. Peace was to be
restored; and the castles and all the powers of government were in
future to be Edward’s. It followed of necessity, that any one who
chose, after this, to maintain war against the king, took the position
of a rebel. This has been an admitted law, in all nations, and in all
times. We can easily call to mind the period, when it was suspected
that Soult had fought the battle of Toulouse after receiving the
intelligence of Napoleon’s abdication; and when it was generally felt,
that if such were really the case, death would be his fate, or, at
least, his desert. And, unquestionably, after Napoleon’s departure, and
the establishment of Louis XVIII., any one of Napoleon’s commanders who
had chosen to hold a fortress against the king, would have found the
punishment of a rebel awaiting him.
But in Scotland, although the late regent and his coadjutors had agreed
to deliver up the castles to the king, there was one commander who
resolutely refused so to surrender his charge.
The castle of Stirling, during one of Edward’s absences in England, had
been invested by the Scottish forces, and starved into a surrender. The
regents had garrisoned it with three hundred men, and had placed it
under the command of Sir William Oliphant.
By the treaty recently made, this castle became Edward’s, and any man
holding it against him was as justly liable to suffer the death of
a rebel, as if he had held against the king the Tower of London. In
fact, all men who continued a fruitless resistance, had been formally
declared outlaws in a Scottish parliament held at St. Andrew’s.[123]
Yet Oliphant refused to submit. He at first tried the device of asking
for time to send to Sir John Soulis, one of the late regents, who had
fled to France. But the castle was not Soulis’s, nor had Oliphant
received the charge of it from Soulis in his private capacity, but as
one of the regents; and the regents and all the lords of Scotland had
now abandoned their resistance. This transparent device, therefore,
could not deceive Edward, who indignantly exclaimed, “Am _I_ to wait
for _his_ pleasure? No; if you will not surrender the castle, defend it
if you will, and abide the consequences.”
There surely cannot be the smallest question, that if the king, with
the treaty in his hand which promised him quiet possession of all the
castles of Scotland, and with the declaration of the parliament of St.
Andrew’s before him, had given the garrison of Stirling notice, that
unless the castle was surrendered within three days, he would hang
every one of them as rebels, he would have been fully justified. Yet,
instead of this, he patiently submitted to the toils and perils of a
long siege, in which many of his men were killed, and in which his own
life was repeatedly endangered.
The castle was exceedingly strong, and the battering artillery of
modern days was entirely unknown. It is probable that Oliphant,
confident in the natural strength of the place, hoped that he might
weary out Edward and his army, and so win for himself a lasting fame.
“The siege,” says Mr. Tytler, “had continued from the 22nd of April
to the 20th of May, without much impression having been made. But
determination was a marked feature in the powerful character of the
king. He wrote to the sheriffs of York, Lincoln, and London, commanding
them to purchase and send instantly to him, at Stirling, all the
balistæ, quarrells, and bows and arrows, which they could collect; and
to the governor of the Tower, requiring a similar supply.”[124]
Two months more elapsed before these engines could be collected and
brought to bear upon the castle. Meanwhile the king exposed himself
in the siege as freely as any of his men. On one occasion a javelin
struck him on the breast, and lodged itself between the steel plates of
his armour. The king plucked it out, and shaking it in the air, called
out to the besieged, that he would hang the man who had aimed it. On
another day, a great stone, discharged from one of the engines in the
castle, struck his horse such a blow, that he backed and fell. His
soldiers rushed forward, and carried the king off—crying out against
his rashness; to which he only replied, “We have undertaken a just war
in the name of the Lord, and we will not fear what man can do unto
us.”[125]
At last, in July, a considerable breach was effected, and the ditch
was nearly filled up with the rubbish and faggots thrown into it. A
general assault would now have carried the castle; but, seeing their
imminent peril, the besieged sent to beg for terms of surrender. They
asked for “security of life and limb,”—a request which the king would,
doubtless, have granted readily, if preferred at the beginning of the
siege, instead of at the end of it. But it was now too late. They had
forfeited their lives, by all the military laws that ever were known.
They had been making war for three months past, not in behalf of the
king of Scotland, for there was no king except Edward; nor yet in
behalf of the regency of Scotland, for the regents had submitted, and
made their peace with the king. They had made war with their lawful
sovereign, simply to gratify their own feelings of animosity; in a
word, they were rebels, taken in the act. Hence Edward’s stern reply
was a just and proper one: “I will not receive you to my _grace_, but
only to my _will_.”
“Sir John de Mowbray and Sir Eustace le Poer accordingly proceeded
to the castle‐gate, and summoned the governor. Oliphant, with his
kinsman Dupplin and a squire, met the English knights, and proceeded
with them to an interview with the earls of Gloucester and Ulster. At
this meeting they consented, for themselves and their companions, to
surrender unconditionally to the king of England; and they earnestly
requested that he would permit them to make this surrender in his own
presence, and would himself witness their contrition.”[126]
It is quite evident that, like David of Snowdon, who, in 1283, prayed
to be allowed to see the king, they understood Edward’s character; and
that their best or only hope lay in the real kindness of his heart.
They came, accordingly, before the king, in the attitude and garb of
criminals. Doubtless, if in the present century, such an act had been
done, the doers of it, either by martial or criminal law, would have
been declared rebels, and would have been condemned to die. They said,
“My lord, we submit ourselves to your will” The king answered, “My will
is to hang you all; and if you dislike that, you may return to the
castle.” But they still had faith in his mercy; and they persisted in
leaving themselves wholly at his disposal; kneeling before him in the
attitude of criminals. At last, after a pause, “the king being moved,
turned away his face for a time; and those who stood round broke into
tears.” He then ordered them to be sent to certain English castles,
adding, “Do not chain them.”[127] Not a man suffered any punishment
beyond a temporary confinement; except one Englishman, who had aided
the Scots in getting possession of the castle. He, dragged forth and
hanged, died for his treason.
Yet Edward’s noble acknowledgment of their soldierly bearing, even in a
cause in itself wholly unjustifiable, which was implied in his orders
to put no fetters on them, is thus ungraciously noticed by Lord Hailes:
“This was the only hope of pardon indulged to men whose valour would
have been revered by _a more generous conqueror_.”
Why, such a conqueror as Wallace, of whom the Scots are so proud,
would have butchered every man upon the spot! This, indeed, as his own
eulogists admit, was his constant practice. A monarch of the ordinary
kind, after having been put to so much trouble and loss by a defence
which was wholly contrary to the law of nations, would have hanged
up the commander, as the chief offender, and have thrown the rest of
the garrison into a dungeon. The third Edward, provoked by the long
but far more justifiable defence of Calais, actually ordered six of
its defenders to execution; only recalling that order at the earnest
entreaty of his queen. But the king now before us, after seeing many of
his men killed before his eyes, and after having had his own life twice
endangered, in a warfare which he knew to be wholly unjustifiable,
still so far honours soldierly firmness and tenacity, that he spares
all their lives, and commands that no fetters shall be put on them.
And yet, after this, he is reproached as “ungenerous!” Such is the
sort of justice which this great king commonly receives at the hands of
Scotchmen.
Scotland was now once more quieted and at rest. The entire surrender
made by Baliol in 1296, to a superior lord who justly claimed a fief
forfeited by rebellion, had now been a second time confirmed by the
voluntary homage and oath of fealty of every baron, knight, or landed
proprietor in Scotland. There remained but one man still contumacious,
the once terrible, but now despised William Wallace. And he, at last,
wearied of the vagrant, outlaw life of the last six years, “prayed his
friends that they would beseech Edward that he might yield himself on
terms.”[128]
The rebel leader, as we have already observed, was, for some reason or
other, entirely deserted by the whole Scottish nation. We have already
cited Mr. Tytler’s admission—that during all the years which elapsed
between his defeat at Falkirk in 1298, and his apprehension in 1305,
“his name does not occur as bearing _even a secondary command_ in the
wars against Edward.” Sir James Mackintosh endeavours to account for
this, by saying that “the jealousy of the nobles, or the unpopularity
of a signal reverse, _hide Wallace from our search_ for several
years.” But “the jealousy of the nobles” had not hindered Wallace
from gathering an army in 1297, and another in 1298; nor did “the
unpopularity of ‘several’ signal reverses,” in 1306, prevent Bruce
from bringing fresh forces into the field in 1307. How it happened
that, after 1298, not even a score of “men of desperate fortunes”
could be got to follow Wallace, must remain a mystery. One suspicion
has occurred to us, grounded upon the known facts, of his delight in
cruelty, a trait which is seldom found in the truly brave; and of
the absence of the slightest record of any deed of daring, either at
Stirling or at Falkirk. These two circumstances seem to point to the
conclusion—that Wallace was taken to be, by his countrymen, during all
these years, something very much the reverse of “a hero.” One trifling
incident in his life is briefly mentioned as occurring during this
period. Blind Harry, in his romance, sends Wallace to France, where
Philip makes him “Duke of Guyenne.” But the real truth of this part of
his story is briefly told us in the “Chronicle of St. Albans” (Cotton
MSS.), in the following terms:—
“About this time William Waleis, with five soldiers, went to the French
country, to ask aid from the king of France. And when he had arrived
at Amiens, it was told to the king, who gave orders that he should be
apprehended. The king then wrote to the king of England, offering to
send Waleis to him.”