THE PATRIOT HERO
'Lawta and trowth was ay in Wallace seyn;
To fend the rycht all that he tuk on hand.'
HARRY, viii. 144-5.
'The manlyast man, the starkest off persoun,
Leyffand he was; and als stud in sic rycht
We traist weill God his dedis had in sycht.'
HARRY, ix. 616-18.
It is matter of deep regret that the facts of the personality and
career of Wallace still remain so obscure. There is no alternative
but to piece them together painfully from the strange miscellany of
available materials, perplexed, distorted, fragmentary, and fabulous.
Yet when the misrepresentations of virulent foes and adulatory admirers
are firmly brushed away, the patriot hero stands forth, incontestably,
as one of the grandest figures in history.
On the death of Alexander III., Scotland sank from the crest of
prosperity into the very trough of adversity. The brief reigns of the
infant Margaret and the puppet Balliol only served as breathing-space
for the marshalling of the forces of internal conflict to the profit of
a powerful and remorseless aggressor. Industry was unsettled; commerce
was disorganised. The King was contemned; the nobles were distrusted.
Both King and nobles were liegemen of the foreigner, while the free
commons sullenly nourished the passion of immemorial independence.
Scotland was indeed 'stad in perplexytè.' Her 'gold wes changyd in to
lede.' When, and whence, would ever come succour and remede?
Succour and remede sprang, naturally, from the insolence and oppression
of the minions of the invader. Little did Wallace know or reck of the
solemn farce enacted at Norham and Berwick, or of the feudal rights
of Balliol or another. Like a deliverer of old, 'he went out unto his
brethren, and looked on their burdens'; 'when he saw there was no man,
he slew the _Englishman_, and hid him in the sand.' An outlaw, he drew
to him friends, free lances, probably enough desperadoes, and waged
such guerrilla warfare as was possible against the oppressors of his
family and his countrymen. Some other knights and squires similarly
maintained themselves in the forests and fastnesses of the land. But
there must have been some distinctive and commanding qualities in the
man that was able to step forward in that dark hour from an obscure
social position to lead the forlorn hope of Scottish independence.
'Wallace's make, as he grew up to manhood,' says Tytler, 'approached
almost to the gigantic; and his personal strength was superior to
the common run of even the strongest men.' Even Burton dissociates
himself from belief in this statement. But surely, though 'the later
romancers and minstrels' have 'profusely trumpeted Wallace's personal
prowess and superhuman strength,' the assertion of Tytler makes no
great draft on one's credulity. On the contrary, in an age when warlike
renown depended so essentially on personal deeds of derring-do, the
astonishing thing--the incredible thing--would be if Wallace had not
been a man of pre-eminent physical strength and resourcefulness in the
use of arms. By what other means, indeed, could the second son of an
obscure knight, a mere youth just out of his teens, living the life of
an outlaw, uncountenanced by the support of a single great noble, by
any possibility have maintained himself, attracted adherents, impressed
the enemy, and become the hero of a nation, if he did not possess quite
exceptional physical strength and prowess? How is it possible that a
man that had gone through the hardships of a desperate guerrilla, as
Wallace must have done, should be other than a man 'of iron frame'?
Ajax was taller than Agamemnon; and Jop may have stood a head higher
than Wallace. But the substantial fact of his impressive physique is
not to be denied. The romancers exaggerate, of course; but on this
point even Harry scarcely outdoes Major or Bower.
Harry's slight sketch of Wallace as a 'child' of eighteen prepares us
for the description of his hero in his prime by 'clerks, knights, and
heralds' of France, which, he says, Blair set down 'in Wallace' book.'
'Wallace' stature, in largeness and in height,
Was judged thus, by such as saw him right
Both in his armour dight and in undress:
Nine quarters large he was in length--no less;
Third part his length in shoulders broad was he,
Right seemly, strong, and handsome for to see;
His limbs were great, with stalwart pace and sound;
His brows were hard, his arms were great and round;
His hands right like a palmer's did appear,
Of manly make, with nails both great and clear;
Proportioned long and fair was his visàge;
Right grave of speech, and able in couràge;
Broad breast and high, with sturdy neck and great,
Lips round, his nose square and proportionate;
Brown wavy hair, on brows and eyebrows light,
Eyes clear and piercing, like to diamonds bright.
On the left side was seen below the chin,
By hurt, a wen; his colour was sanguìne.
Wounds, too, he had in many a diverse place,
But fair and well preserved was aye his face.
Of riches for himself he kept no thing;
Gave as he won, like Alexander the King.
In time of peace, meek as a maid was he;
Where war approached, the right Hector was he.
To Scots men ever credence great he gave;
Known enemies could never him deceive.
These qualities of his were known in France,
Where people held him in good remembrance.'
It is futile to dispute over fractional details. Let the most exacting
historical critic array the indisputable facts of Wallace's birth,
breeding, and career, and frame upon these his conception of the figure
of the man. It is impossible that there should be any substantial
difference between such a picture and the picture exhibited by Harry.
Fordun states that Wallace was 'wondrously brave and bold, of goodly
mien, and boundless liberality'; and that he ruled with an iron hand
of discipline. Major declines to commit himself to Wallace's alleged
feats of strength; yet he does not scruple to affirm that 'two or even
three Englishmen were scarce able to make stand against him, such was
his bodily strength, such also the quickness of his dexterity, and his
indomitable courage,' while 'there was no extreme of cold or heat, or
hunger or of thirst, that he could not bear.' And Bower's description
bears out fully the account given by Harry. The objector is not to be
envied in his task of explaining how Wallace fought in the thickest of
the battle, how he defended the rear against mailed horsemen on barbed
chargers, and how he stood at the head of the Scots in the battle of
Stirling Bridge.
But, as Burton justly remarks, 'Wallace's achievements demanded
qualities of a higher order.' Now Burton's cautious reticence gives
especial emphasis to his decided affirmation that Wallace 'was a man of
vast political and military genius.' 'As a soldier,' the circumspect
Burton freely admits, 'Wallace was one of those marvellously gifted
men, arising at long intervals, who can see through the military
superstitions of the day, and organise power out of those elements
which the pedantic soldier rejects as rubbish.' Yes, Wallace had to
create, and then to train; not merely to organise and marshal and order
in the field. Wallace started with the sole equipment of his single
sword. With his small and inexperienced body of comrades, without
mailed barons or mailed chargers, he was driven by sheer necessity to
devise means of conserving his force and at the same time making it as
effective as possible in offence. At Stirling, his masterly selection
of the ground practically decided the issue; the rash confidence of
Cressingham only rendered the victory more complete. At Falkirk,
as Burton points out, 'he showed even more of the tactician in the
disposal of his troops where they were compelled to fight'--tactics
amply vindicated on many a modern battlefield. 'The arrangement,
save that it was circular instead of rectangular, was precisely the
same as the "square to receive cavalry" which has baffled and beaten
back so many a brilliant army in later days.' But for the defection
of the cavalry, comparatively weak as they were, Falkirk might have
been Stirling Bridge. These tactics, however, admirable as they are
universally acknowledged to have been, and even original, were no
doubt developed by painful experience in the guerrilla period. And, on
the other hand, it is to be remembered that, while Scotland had had
no experience of war for more than a century, Wallace was not only
crippled by the operation of the feudal allegiance, but had for his
opponents the ablest generals and the most seasoned warriors of the age.
On the moral side of war, Wallace must indeed have been a sanguinary
barbarian if any apology for his severities be due to the murderers
of his wife, to the conqueror that made Berwick swim in blood, to the
insolent tramplers upon the common human feelings of his countrymen, or
to the juggling reivers of the independence of his country. We decline
to apologise for his alleged private reprisals: if you madden a man
with open injustice and intolerable oppression, if you gaily lacerate
his soul in his physical helplessness, it is you yourself that invite
him to have recourse to the primal code of retaliation. If Wallace, as
Harry says, never spared any Englishman 'that able was to war,' it was
an intelligible principle in the dire circumstances of the time; and
he is not known to have deprecated the application of the principle
to himself. If he imagined that there had come to him an admonition,
divine and imperative, to slay and spare not, we decline to censure him
because he hewed his enemies in pieces before the Lord.
Yet such deliberate and inexorable rigour of policy is a wholly
different matter from gratuitous cruelty. Wallace did not war on women,
priests, or other 'weak folk.' It is not the strong man that is a cruel
man. True, the English historians brand him as brigand, cut-throat,
man of Belial, and so forth--_latro ille_, _latro publicus_, etc.--and
ascribe to him inhuman atrocities. This indeed is by no means unnatural
for writers of the cloister, starting from Wallace's outlawry and
his guerrilla warfare, and cherishing a full share of the virulent
international enmity. But while no doubt very rough deeds were done
in those days on both sides, 'Herodian cruelties' are but the stock
allegations of dislike at this period; and they are hurled from both
sides indiscriminately. Major expressly admits that 'towards all
unwarlike persons, such as women and children, towards all who claimed
his mercy, he showed himself humane,' though 'the proud and all who
offered resistance he knew well how to curb.' The strong impression
remains that Wallace never, at any rate never without some overpowering
constraint, either did or permitted mere cruelty to any person.
Hemingburgh's account of the episode at Hexham speaks volumes in his
favour.
The regrettable inadequacy of historical criticism of Harry's poem
prevents us, in the meantime, from illustrating the minor military
qualities of Wallace. But, admitted that he was 'a man of vast military
genius,' there is little necessity for detailed remarks on his care and
consideration for his men; on his men's confidence in him and affection
for him; on his sleepless vigilance, his high courage, his cool daring,
his masterful rule, his resolute tenacity and endurance, his keen
sense of honour, his singular unselfishness, his lofty magnanimity.
Undoubtedly he did not lack that 'bit of the devil in him,' without
which, according to Sir Charles Napier, 'no man can command.' Nothing
in all Harry's panorama is more nobly touching, or more illuminative,
than the fidelity of the men that stood closest to Wallace. Is it not
true, though Harry says it, that, when Steven of Ireland and Kerly
rejoined their lost leader in the Tor Wood after the annihilation of
Elcho Park, 'for perfect joy they wept with all their een'? Is not the
lament of Wallace over the dead body of Sir John the Graham on the
field of Falkirk the true, as well as the supreme, expression of the
profound affection and confidence that united the goodly fellowship of
these tried comrades and dauntless men?
Burton, as we have seen, also acknowledges freely that Wallace was 'a
man of vast political genius.' The particulars are most limited, and
yet they are ample to ground a large inference. It will be sufficient
to recall his endeavours, in the midst of warlike activity, to
resuscitate industry and commerce, to reorganise the civil order,
to secure the aid of France and Rome, to minimise the friction with
the barons, and to observe and to enforce deference to constitutional
principle. It is a striking testimony to his greatness of mind that
he was absolutely destitute of ambition, as ambition is ordinarily
understood. Emphatically he was a man that
'cared not to be great,
But as he saved or served the State.'
Even at the height of his power and popularity, he does not seem to
have had the faintest impulse to seize the crown, or indeed to seize
anything, for himself. Harry tells an extraordinary story, with a
definiteness that commands attention, how he took the crown for one
day, on Northallerton Moor, expressly and solely and most reluctantly
'to get battle.' Whether he could have taken the crown and held it--if
he had so wished--need not tempt speculation. It is a singularly bright
leaf in Wallace's laurels that there remains no shadow of evidence of
any inclination on his part to swerve from the straight course of pure
and unselfish patriotism.
'Wallace,' says Major, 'whom the common people, with some of the
nobles, followed gladly, had a lofty spirit; and born, as he was, of no
illustrious house, he yet proved himself a better ruler in the simple
armour of his integrity than any of those nobles would have been.' And
again: 'Wise and prudent he was, and marked throughout his life by a
loftiness of aim which gives him a place, in my opinion, second to none
in his day and generation.'
But beyond and above the exceptional tribute of 'vast political and
military genius'--a tribute doubly ample for any one man in any century
of a nation's history--it is the unique glory of Wallace that he was
the one man of his time that dared to champion the independence of his
country. More than that, though he died a cruel and shameful death
amidst the exultant insults of his country's foes in the capital city
of the enemy, he yet died victorious. He had kept alight the torch of
Scottish freedom. He, a man of the people, had taught the recreant
nobles that resistance to the invader was not hopeless, although those
that took the torch immediately from his hand failed to carry it on;
and the light was preserved by the commonalty till the torch was at
length grasped by Bruce. Wallace, in fact, had made the ascendency of
Bruce possible--a possibility converted into a certainty by the death
of Edward I. Lord Rosebery has justly pointed to the attitude of Edward
towards him in 1304, as 'the greatest proof of Wallace's eminence and
power.' The true Deliverer of Scotland was Sir William Wallace.
The prime consideration is very finely singled out and expressed by
Lord Rosebery, in the address he delivered at the Stirling Celebration
in 1897--
'There are junctures in the affairs of men when what is wanted
is a Man--not treasures, not fleets, not legions, but a
Man--the man of the moment, the man of the occasion, the man of
Destiny, whose spirit attracts and unites and inspires, whose
capacity is congenial to the crisis, whose powers are equal
to the convulsion--the child and the outcome of the storm....
We recognise in Wallace one of these men--a man of Fate given
to Scotland in the storms of the thirteenth century. It is
that fact, the fact of his destiny and his fatefulness, that
succeeding generations have instinctively recognised.'
The instinct of the Scottish nation is thoroughly sound. Though at one
time nourished by Harry's poem, it is rooted in the rock of historical
fact. And, despite the sneers of the inconsiderate, it is a great
imperial influence. Who will assert that the empire has suffered from
the intense passion of freedom that Scotsmen associate with the name
of Wallace? Is it not the obvious fact that the free national feeling
by transmutation swells the imperial flame? If it is fundamentally
due to Wallace's heroic heart and mind that the national spirit of
freedom saved Scotland from union with England, on any terms less
dignified than the footing of independence, then the results of his
noble struggle entitle him to a foremost place among the great men
that have established the foundations of the British Empire. One
sovereign at least of England as well as of Scotland acknowledged--and
handsomely acknowledged--'the good and honourable service done of old
by William Wallace for the defence of that our kingdom.' Wallace made
Scotland great; and, as Lord Rosebery proudly and justly claimed, 'if
Scotland were not great, the Empire of all the Britains would not stand
where it does.' In the work of imperial expansion, consolidation, and
administration, Scotsmen have done, and are doing, at least their
fair share; but that share would have been indefinitely deferred, and
indefinitely marred, but for the uncurbed passion of freedom pervading
their nature. And to Scotsmen, in all the generations, Freedom will
ever be nobly typified in the immortal name of SIR WILLIAM WALLACE.
Transcribers' Notes:
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
Page 44: "ȝ" is the letter "yogh". Some versions of this eBook will
display it as the numeral "3" or as a question mark.
Page 44: "^{ty}" represents the superscript form of "ty".
Page 45: "till he was out twenty-nine" probably should be "about".
Page 67: "Earn side" may be a misprint for "Earnside".
Page 159: "Philip would an if he could" was printed that way.