Sir William Wallace

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ix. 6

ogether painfully from the strange miscellany of available materials, perplexed, distorted, fragmentary, and fabulous. Yet when the misrepresentations o

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

d 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 kni

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

for the description of his hero in his prime by 'clerks, knights, and

re, in largenes

us, by such a

rmour dight a

arge he was in

ength in shoulde

trong, and hand

eat, with stalwar

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ong and fair w

speech, and a

high, with stur

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, on brows and

iercing, like to

ide was seen

n; his colour

e had in many

ll preserved wa

himself he k

n, like Alexa

ace, meek as

ached, the righ

ever credence

s could neve

s of his were

eld him in goo

old, 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

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

cline 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 w

l 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 unwarl

terful 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

l 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 a

not to

ved or serve

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

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 p

ults 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 commonalt

t and expressed by Lord Rosebery, in the address

rit 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 the

t 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 Lo

ribers

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