Page 40 of 163

     * Walsing. p. 76. T. Wykes, p. 127. Heming vol. i. p. 163,
     164, 165. Trivet (p. 313) says only twenty thousand. M.
     West. (p. 431) says forty thousand.

In this general rout of the army, Wallace’s military skill and presence of mind enabled him to keep his troops entire and retiring behind the Carron, he marched leisurely along the banks of that small river, which protected him from the enemy. Young Bruce, who had already given many proofs of his aspiring genius, but who served hitherto in the English army, appeared on the opposite banks, and distinguishing the Scottish chief, as well by his majestic port as by the intrepid activity of his behavior, called out to him, and desired a short conference. He here represented to Wallace the fruitless and ruinous enterprise in which he was engaged; and endeavored to bend his inflexible spirit to submission under superior power and superior fortune: he insisted on the unequal contest between a weak state, deprived of its head and agitated by intestine discord, and a mighty nation, conducted by the ablest and most martial monarch of the age, and possessed of every resource either for protracting the war, or for pushing it with vigor and activity; if the love of his country were his motive for perseverence, his obstinacy tended only to prolong her misery; if he carried his views to private grandeur and ambition, he might reflect that, even if Edward should withdraw his armies, it appeared from past experience, that so many haughty nobles, proud of the preeminence of their families, would never submit to personal merit, whose superiority they were less inclined to regard as an object of admiration than as a reproach and injury to themselves. To these exhortations Wallace replied that, if he had hitherto acted alone, as the champion of his country, it was solely because no second or competitor, or what he rather wished, no leader, had yet appeared to place himself in that honorable station: that the blame lay entirely on the nobility, and chiefly on Bruce himself, who, uniting personal merit to dignity of family, had deserted the post which both nature and fortune, by such powerful calls, invited him to assume: that the Scots, possessed of such a head, would, by their unanimity and concord, have surmounted the chief difficulty under which they now labored, and might hope, notwithstanding their present losses, to oppose successfully all the power and abilities of Edward: that heaven itself could not set a more glorious prize before the eyes either of virtue or ambition, than to join in one object, the acquisition of royalty with the defence of national independence: and that as the interests of his country, no more than those of a brave man, could never be sincerely cultivated by a sacrifice of liberty, he himself was determined, as far as possible, to prolong, not her misery, but her freedom, and was desirous that his own life, as well as the existence of the nation, might terminate when they could no otherwise be preserved than by receiving the chains of a haughty victor. The gallantry of these sentiments, though delivered by an armed enemy, struck the generous mind of Bruce: the flame was conveyed from the breast of one hero to that of another: he repented of his engagements with Edward; and opening his eyes to the honorable path pointed out to him by Wallace, secretly determined to seize the first opportunity of embracing the cause, however desperate, of his oppressed country.[*]

     * This story is told by all the Scotch writers; though it
     must be owned that Trivet and Hemingford, authors of good
     credit, both agree that Bruce was not at that time in
     Edward’s army.

1299.

The subjection of Scotland, notwithstanding this great victory of Edward, was not yet entirely completed. The English army, after reducing the southern provinces, was obliged to retire for want of provisions; and left the northern counties in the hands of the natives. The Scots, no less enraged at their present defeat than elated by their past victories, still maintained the contest for liberty; but being fully sensible of the great inferiority of their force, they endeavored, by applications to foreign courts, to procure to themselves some assistance. The supplications of the Scottish ministers were rejected by Philip; but were more successful with the court of Rome.

1300.

Boniface, pleased with an occasion of exerting his authority, wrote a letter to Edward, exhorting him to put a stop to his oppressions in Scotland, and displaying all the proofs, such as they had probably been furnished him by the Scots themselves, for the ancient independence of that kingdom.[*] Among other arguments hinted at above, he mentioned the treaty conducted and finished by Edward himself, for the marriage of his son with the heiress of Scotland; a treaty which would have been absurd, had he been superior lord of the kingdom, and had possessed by the feudal law the right of disposing of his ward in marriage. He mentioned several other striking facts, which fell within the compass of Edward’s own knowledge particularly that Alexander, when he did homage to the king, openly and expressly declared in his presence, that he swore fealty not for his crown, but for the lands which he held in England: and the pope’s letter might have passed for a reasonable one, had he not subjoined his own claim to be liege lord of Scotland; a claim which had not once been heard of, but which, with a singular confidence, he asserted to be full, entire, and derived from the most remote antiquity. The affirmative style, which had been so successful with him and his predecessors in spiritual contests, was never before abused after a more egregious manner in any civil controversy.

1301.

The reply which Edward made to Boniface’s letter, contains particulars no less singular and remarkable.[**] He there proves the superiority of England by historical facts, deduced from the period of Brutus, the Trojan, who, he said, founded the British monarchy in the age of Eli and Samuel: he supports his position by all the events which passed in the island before the arrival of the Romans: and after laying great stress on the extensive dominions and heroic victories of King Arthur, he vouchsafes at last to descend to the time of Edward the Elder, with which, in his speech to the states of Scotland, he had chosen to begin his claim of superiority. He asserts it to be a fact, “notorious and confirmed by the records of antiquity,” that the English monarchs had often conferred the kingdom of Scotland on their own subjects, had dethroned these vassal kings when unfaithful to them; and had substituted others in their stead.

     * Rymer, vol. ii. p. 844.

     ** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 863.

He displays with great pomp the full and complete homage which William had done to Henry II.; without mentioning the formal abolition of that extorted deed by King Richard, and the renunciation of all future claims of the same nature. Yet this paper he begins with a solemn appeal to the Almighty, the searcher of hearts for his own firm persuasion of the justice of his claim; and no less than a hundred and four barons, assembled in parliament at Lincoln, concur in maintaining before the pope, under their seals, the validity of these pretensions.[*] At the same time, however, they take care to inform Boniface, that, though they had justified their cause before him, they did not acknowledge him for their judge: the crown of England was free and sovereign: they had sworn to maintain all its royal prerogatives, and would never permit the king himself, were he willing, to relinquish its independency.