make him a traitor. If, however, this plea was overruled Wallace had no answer, as he seems, in fact, to have made none, to the other counts of the indictment. He had undoubtedly headed a war in which men and women had been slain under circumstances of great ferocity, and churches burned or plundered by his followers. He had certainly not been worse, and probably had been more merciful, than other Scotch leaders; but he was not justified by ancestral rank in putting himself at the head of a national movement, and English pride could not forgive the mere squire who had defeated nobles and knights with burghers and Highland kerns. To Edward and his people-as even to Philip of France, and perhaps to some Scotchmen of the day-Wallace was no better than a brigand leading an armed rabble against their natural lords, and subverting the foundations of a political order more valuable to every statesman than a mere principle of nationality. Accordingly the sentence pronounced, though it struck men who remembered better times as horrible, did not seem to them unjust. By a new refinement of cruelty, Wallace was not only to be dragged to the gallows and hanged, but to be cut down while yet living, and disemboweled. This atrocious sentence was actually carried out.

Those who remember how Henry II. had spared the promoters of a wanton rebellion; how King Richard had acted by his brother John and his followers; how John himself had been compelled to plead at the bar of public opinion for the murder of the younger De Braose, and never dared to bring a rebel to formal trial; how Fawkes de Breautè was suffered to leave the country, and William de Marsh only hanged for complicity in rebellion and assassination, will understand what the clemency of our old judicial practice to all offenders in the rank of gentlemen had been, and how completely it was transformed, under Edward, into an impartial barbarity. The early lenity was, perhaps, excessive, but it did not

demoralize, like the executions which are henceforth crowded thickly into the king's bitter old age.

It is possible that Wallace's fame has been better served by his death than it could have been by his life. Though a man of rare capacity, who called the first army of independence, as it were, out of the earth, and who gave body and enthusiasm to the war, he was unfitted by position to command the allegiance of the great nobles, who could alone. insure success. He would probably have weakened Bruce by dividing the patriotic interest, or else have degenerated into a mere partisan leader. From the little we know of him, he was no faultless hero of romance, or absolutely without reproach among bloody and faithless men. It is probable that he permitted a savage license before he was sobered by success and a high position; and he seems to have lost heart in the last campaign, and to have wished to renounce a struggle which he was left to maintain alone. But these frailties, dearly expiated, cannot detract from the great facts of his life that he was the first man who fought, not to support a dynasty, but to free Scotland; and the first general who showed that citizens could be an overmatch for trained soldiers; that no reproach of cruelty or self-seeking attaches to his term of government; and that the enemy of his country selected him as its first martyr.

6

XXI.

BRUCE AND BANNOCKBURN.—LONGMAN.

[Edward II. was as weak and cowardly as his father was brave and noble. He fell at once under the influence of favorites and parasites, and the greater part of his reign was occupied with struggles between him and his barons, whose object was to secure good government, and save the king from the consequences of his own folly. He undertook to carry out his father's policy in Scotland, but his overwhelming and disgraceful defeat at Bannockburn robbed him of the little influence he possessed. He was at length deposed, and the crown was given to his son. Though his fate is somewhat doubtful, it is generally supposed that he was secretly murdered in Berkeley Castle in 1327.]

THE almost inaccessible castle of Stirling was nearly the last fortress of importance which still held out against the Scots, and Bruce's brother, Sir Edward Bruce, now laid siege to it. Its governor, Philip de Mowbray, was hard pressed, and feared his garrison would be starved out before it was possible to get help from England. He therefore concluded a truce with Sir Edward Bruce, on the condition of surrendering the castle by the 24th of June, the feast of St. John the Baptist, in the following year, if it were not previously relieved by an English army. Bruce justly blamed his brother for making so disadvantageous an agreement, but he did not attempt to break it.

King Edward, having made a kind of peace with his barons, was now able to turn his mind seriously to the war with Scotland. Had he not now roused himself from his supineness, he would, in fact, have left Scotland to its fate. But, on learning De Mowbray's agreement about Stirling Castle, he made immense preparations for its relief. He summoned the whole military force of the kingdom to meet him at Berwick on the 11th of June, 1314. To this general muster ninetythree barons were commanded to repair, with horse and arms, while the different counties of England and Wales were or

dered to raise a body of twenty-seven thousand foot-soldiers. The whole army is said to have exceeded one hundred thousand men, of whom forty thousand were cavalry, three thousand of these being, man and horse, in complete armor, and fifty thousand were archers. A fleet of about fifty ships was appointed to co-operate with the army; ample stores of provisions for the troops, and forage for the horses, were collected from all quarters; smiths, carpenters, masons, and armorers joined the grand array; and numerous wagons and carts, for the conveyance of the tents, pavilions, and baggage, formed a necessary part of the well-appointed army.

Bruce on his side was not idle. But he found he could not muster above forty thousand fighting men, and his horses were not equal to those of the English. He therefore determined to fight principally on foot, and to choose ground where the English cavalry could not act with advantage. His soldiers were armed with battle-axes, long spears, knives or daggers, and bows and arrows. The formidable weapons, called Lochaber-axes, spiked flails, and clayınores, are, however, said to have been also used at the time.

Stirling is situated on the south side of the river Forth, which winds round it, in a very devious course, on all sides but the south. On the north and east this river formed in those days a strong natural defense of the town; but on the west it was not near enough to protect it. The castle, however, stands on a precipitous rock, which is, for all military purposes, inaccessible on the western and southern sides. The only side, therefore, from which a successful attack could be made was the south-east. It was from that side that the English were approaching, but they could reach the castle only by crossing the little river Bannock. The Bannock, from Milton Marsh as far as the village of Bannockburn, runs through a deep ravine, which the English could not pass in the face of the Scotch army; below the village it turns to the north, and flows into the Forth. The ground in this

direction, lying between the Forth and the Bannockburn, was a level marsh, unfit for the passage of a large army, but practicable for a small body of troops.

Bruce, therefore, seeing that the English must advance by the Falkirk road, expected that they would cross the Bannock at a ford on the Kilsyth road, and consequently posted his army across it, on sloping ground to the north of the Halbert and Milton Marshes. The right of his army rested on a deep marshy hollow, lying on the west and north sides of the Coxe Hill, and through which ran a little stream. The left rested on the Bannock, at Milton Mill, where the river runs through the deep ravine already mentioned. In order, however, to strengthen his position further, he caused a number of pits to be dug in the ground from the Halbert Marsh to the marshy hollow under Coxe Hill. In these pits sharp stakes were placed, and they were then covered over with turf. On the Coxe Hill Bruce placed a body of men to observe the movements of the enemy, and to resist any treacherous attack from Stirling Castle, the garrison of which was bound by the truce to take no part in the battle. Lastly, he placed a body of wild, undisciplined Highlanders, with the sutlers and camp followers, concealed in a valley which divides a hill, called the Gillies' Hill, from east to west. These men might be very useful in an irregular fight, or in case of any reverse to Bruce's army, but would have done more harm than good in a well-arranged plan of battle. His reserved forces were placed in the rear.

Bruce, having thus made all his plans with great skill, reviewed his troops, and declared himself satisfied with their appearance and equipment. The leaders of his army were, his brother, Sir Edward Bruce; Sir James Douglas; Randolph, earl of Moray; and Walter, the high steward of Scotland. To them he fully explained his intended order of battle, and then quietly awaited the approach of the enemy. He soon received intelligence that the English had lain all night at