The Plantagenets: The Three Edwards Part 3

And medfull dedys he oysed to werk.

The people had every reason to mourn, for now all hope of a peaceful accession was centered in the small child in Norway. Arrangements were made to bring her at once to Scotland. A well-equipped s.h.i.+p was sent for her, fitted out with everything to please the heart of an infant queen-fine clothes and bonnets, soft mattresses, and sweetmeats and frails of dates and figs (a frail being a large basket), and all manner of toys, including perhaps a crown.

Playing cards had not yet been introduced into western Europe, but if they had it might have been said that now Edward of England had all the trumps in his hands. He arranged at once for a meeting at Salisbury to which commissioners from Scotland and Norway were summoned, to make the needful arrangements for the succession and marriage. Under the pretext that the rights of the youthful pair must be conserved, he demanded that Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham, be made governor of Scotland in the interim. This was reluctantly agreed to, for the Scottish commissioners, having a trace of the same thread, knew a shrewd maneuver when they saw one.

When the s.h.i.+p returned from Norway and put in at the island of Orkney, the news was conveyed to the anxiously waiting people of Scotland that the little queen had succ.u.mbed to the hards.h.i.+ps of sea travel while crossing the stormy waters between the two countries.

Almost immediately no fewer than thirteen claimants to the throne came forward. The land was threatened with civil war, and in desperation the lords of the northern kingdom appealed to Edward to act as arbitrator. This duty he undertook with readiness.

A mystery developed almost immediately in connection with the death of the Maid of Norway. It was whispered about that it was not the princess who had died, that in fact she had been spirited off the vessel before it sailed; how or why being left to the individual imagination. In 1301 a handsome young woman came to Norway from Leipzig and gave it out that she was the Princess Margaret. Her story was that she had been kidnaped by a woman named Ingeberg, the wife of Thor Hokansson, and sold into servitude. She bore sufficient resemblance to the deceased Maid to win her some adherents. Her story could not be substantiated in any way, however, and the law did not delay in dealing with the matter. The pretender was imprisoned and later burned at the stake as a witch. She became, to those who had believed in her, a legendary figure and for a long time she was revered as a saint.

3.

The thirteen claimants were a contentious lot, although few of them had more than a shadowy case. There would have been fourteen if Alan Durward, Earl of Atholl, who had married a natural daughter of Alexander II, had not died a short time before. However, one Nicholas de Soules was there, having married another natural daughter of the same king, Ermengarde by name. The two Comyns of Badenoch were on hand, called the Black and the Red, and the first named was inclined to push his rights, which had to do with his descent from a Princess Devorguila. He occupied somewhat the same position as a favorite son in a presidential nomination race in America. He put himself forward but made it clear that, if necessary, he would retire and throw his support to the leading candidate, John de Baliol.

The decision lay in reality between two men, the already mentioned John de Baliol and Robert de Bruce of Annandale, although a third candidate, one John Hastings, was in the running briefly. Baliol was a grandson of Margaret, the eldest daughter of David, brother of William the Lion. Bruce was a son of the second daughter, Isabel, and based his claim on being of an earlier generation than Baliol. Hastings was the grandson of still a third daughter, Ada. Bruce had been acknowledged as his successor by Alexander II when it seemed unlikely that he would have an heir, but the subsequent arrival of a son, who became Alexander III, had nullified that preference. In any event, there was some doubt about the acknowledgment, nothing being on record to prove it had been made.

It seems to have been considered, with good reason, a rather poor choice. Baliol had the better claim from a legal standpoint but he did not appeal to popular sentiment. He lacked the qualities of leaders.h.i.+p, being of a retiring character, if not actually timid. The pawky common people had nicknamed him Toom Tabard, which meant Empty Jacket, and suggests that he was held in rather low esteem.

Bruce was the stronger man of the two, but he was getting on in years, a circ.u.mstance that was offset by his having a solid male line of succession to offer. He had at the time a middle-aged son and a sixteen-year-old grandson, who would become Robert the Bruce, victor at Bannockburn and king and national hero of Scotland. A large group favored the Bruce claims, known as the party of the Seven Earls, which indicates that the landed interests were behind the lord of Annandale. This const.i.tuted a weakness as well, for the Bruces and practically all of their supporters had a strain of Norman blood in their veins. Bruce had extensive estates in England and Ireland, as well as his lands in Carrick from which he derived his earldom. The Scottish people wanted a king with nothing but Celtic blood and undivided sympathies.

This was the issue which Edward was asked to arbitrate.

He summoned the lords of the north to attend him on May 10, 1291, at his castle of Norham, which stood at the border line between the two countries. There was not sufficient room in the tall square structure at Norham for all the claimants and their friends and their respective trains, and so the first meeting was held on the haugh along the riverbank. The proceedings there were opened by the chief justice of England, Roger de Brabazon, who made it clear that the first step must be an acknowledgment of Edward as the supreme and direct lord of Scotland. At this the Scots became painfully aware that their feet were on alien soil and that an alien voice was making a claim that struck at the very core of then-independence. They looked at one another in uneasy amazement and finally they asked for time to discuss the point. This was granted and they withdrew across the river to Scottish soil, where their tongues were free to express what they felt. They returned to the haugh on the English side with a demand for thirty days' delay for consultation with the leaders of Church and state at home.

When they arrived at the end of the thirty days, there were only eight claimants in the party. The others, realizing the weakness of their cases or feeling an unwillingness to accept Edward's terms, had remained at home. The two parties met in Norham Church, and the Scottish spokesman, with a reluctance that attested the bitterness of the struggle from which they had emerged, announced their willingness to accept the overlords.h.i.+p of the English monarch. The remaining claimants swore in turn to abide by Edward's decision as that of the sovereign lord of the land.

It was decided then to have the case debated before a body made up of forty judges selected by Baliol, the same number from the Bruce side, and twenty-four Englishmen appointed by Edward. The hearings before this body were protracted over a long period of time, and it was not until the following year that a meeting was held in the Dominican chapel close to the castle of Berwick. It was here announced that they had found in favor of John de Baliol.

The members of the board and the rival claimants then appeared before Edward in a magnificently staged reception in the great hall of the castle. The English king had summoned all of his leading barons and bishops to attend, and the flash of the jewels they wore was more noticeable than the touch of sunlight on steel. The atmosphere was one of friendliness, and Edward's smile was as warm for the Scots as for his English subjects.

Baliol was crowned at Scone on November 30, 1292. He appeared later at Newcastle to do homage to Edward as his liege lord. Here an incident occurred which caused a darkening of faces among the followers of the new king. Edward took the old seal of Scotland and broke it into four pieces, which were then deposited in a leather bag, to be placed finally in the treasury of England as proof of the significance of the ceremony. There was thoroughness in everything the English king did.

Thus a solution of the succession problem had been reached without any shedding of blood. But Scotland was not happy about it. The king of the Sa.s.senach, the most determined ruler in all Europe, had placed his armored foot across their threshold. Even the n.o.bles and the great chiefs, most of whom had landholdings in England, were apprehensive. Back at home the common people were openly antagonistic to the settlement. They would never place their confidence in, nor have any feeling of loyalty for, King Toom Tabard.

CHAPTER IX.

The Start of the Scottish Wars

1.

KING JOHN of Scotland soon found that he had paid too high a price for his crown.

Six months after his coronation, a citizen of Berwick, Roger Bartholomew by name, appealed to the English courts in a civil action having to do with s.h.i.+pping losses. Berwick was on the Scottish side of the border, but the plaintiff's determination to carry the case to Westminster was allowed. King John was summoned to appear in a case involving a wine bill of the late king and to serve in a Yorks.h.i.+re court. Soon afterward one of the Scottish earls, Macduff of Fife, whose brother had been killed by Lord Abernethy, felt that the hearing of the case in the Scottish courts showed an edge of favoritism on the king's part for the defendant. Macduff took his case to Westminster, and King John was summoned to appear there. When he refused, he was judged guilty of contumacy and an order was issued for the seizure of three of his castles. Lacking the courage and will to stand his ground, John gave in and agreed to appear in person at the next meeting of the English Parliament. When he arrived in London, however, he found that his presence there was likely to have consequences of a much more serious nature. Edward was preparing for war with France, and it was made clear to the Scottish monarch that he would be expected, as a va.s.sal king, to take troops to the continent in aid of the English.

The two kings quarreled bitterly. It was pointed out to Edward that the triple agreement reached at Salisbury before the death of the Maid of Norway had specifically denied the right to try Scottish actions at law in English courts. Edward brushed this aside and stood on the decision at Norham, where his suzerainty had been acknowledged without reservations. John complained that he was being forced to come into English courts with his hat in his hands, figuratively speaking, and that his demand to have a prosecutor appear for him had been denied, so that he had found it necessary to rise and take his place before the bar like any mercer or vintner. The result was that the empty-jacketed lord of the north, wrapping himself in such poor shreds of dignity as were left him, made a secret exit from London and rode hurriedly north to his own land.

The summoning of kings to appear before courts in other lands was not a new departure. The English kings, from the time they acquired possessions in France through marriage, had sworn fealty to the rulers of France, but only in respect to these holdings. A particular case was the summoning of John of England to answer for the murder of his nephew, Arthur, before the peers of France; a demand which that belligerent monarch ignored. The treatment of the new Scottish king was on an entirely different basis. Never before had a sovereign ruler been expected to plead before a foreign court in such purely internal matters as the Macduff case. Two explanations only could be seen for the course Edward was following. He may have been so deep in his preparations for the invasion of France that he left such matters in the hands of his high officials, who proceeded according to the letter of the law, or he may have been deliberately goading the new Scottish ruler into a refusal that would provide a pretext for an armed invasion of the northern country. The second explanation seems the likelier of the two. Certainly it was the view that the people of Scotland held.

While the question of the English king's right to try cases from Scotland in his courts was thus disturbing the relations between the two countries, there was continual trouble on the high seas. Scottish s.h.i.+ps plying between Berwick and the continent were seized and their crews were imprisoned. No redress could be obtained, although the losses to the owners were ruinous.

When John returned from his humiliating experience at Westminster he found his country in an uproar. His compliance had been resented and the leaders were no longer prepared to leave matters of policy in his feeble hands. A board of twelve men was appointed to act as his advisers or, if need be, to control the policy of the state. It consisted of four earls, four barons, and four bishops.

The members of this board, with the Scottish Parliament to back them up and the sentiment of the nation strongly with them, began to take vigorous action. A meeting of the Parliament was held at Scone, where a formal demand from Edward for troops to be sent to France was rejected. The Scottish leaders knew they were inviting armed retaliation, but the national ire had been raised to the point where the people were prepared to fight for their liberty. All English officeholders, including those appointed by Edward, were summarily dismissed and all lands held in fief by English subjects were declared confiscated.

The next step taken by the Scottish leaders was a bold one. They decided to seek an offensive and defensive alliance with France. The King of France at this time was a remarkable individual about whom much will be written later, Philip IV, known as Philip the Fair because he was acknowledged to be the handsomest man in Europe. There was something sphinx-like about this imposing monarch who sat silently on his throne and allowed his ministers, mostly lawyers of comparatively low degree, to make all announcements of policy. It was generally believed that he was slow of wit and lethargic of person (he became immensely corpulent in his middle years), but all the time he was king remarkable things were happening in France. It was to this impa.s.sive but inflexible king that the Scottish Parliament, realizing they had a death struggle on their hands, sent emissaries to propose an alliance against the extremely able and violently active English king. Philip the Fair listened and, according to custom, had almost nothing to say. He was shrewd enough to see, however, that he had little to lose and much to gain in the proposed alliance, and undoubtedly it was on his instructions that his legal advisers decided to take advantage of the chance to place a check on Edward. An agreement was reached between the two nations by which each promised aid to the other in case of English invasion. It was further arranged that a bride for King John's son and heir, Edward, would be found among the beautiful daughters and pulchritudinous nieces who surrounded the handsome monarch. A niece, Isabel de Valence, the daughter of the Count of Anjou, was the one selected.

The alliance with France proved fatal to the Scottish cause. As soon as he learned what had been done, Edward demanded that all the fortresses along the border be placed in his hands until the finish of the war with France. When this was refused, he decided to postpone action against the French until he had dealt with what he termed the insurrection of the Scottish people. This decision was partly the result of a rash and unsuccessful invasion of the northern s.h.i.+res of England undertaken by the Scots in fulfillment of their promises to Philip the Fair. They sent an army down into c.u.mberland led by the seven Scottish earls. The system of divided command which the Scots found necessary because of the pride of the clan heads and their unwillingness to accept orders from one supreme commander, and which was destined to lose them many battles, made this attack an abortive one. They ravaged the countryside until they reached the fortified city of Carlisle. Here they suffered a sharp reverse and found it necessary to retreat to their own territory.

The only a.s.sistance lent them by France was a reopening of an attack on English-held Gascony.

2.

Edward lost no time in moving to the invasion of Scotland. He raised an army of five thousand horse and thirty thousand foot and shoved northward to the Tweed. The palatine Bishop of Durham had collected the armed levies of the north and with them he crossed the Tweed near Norham while Edward was crossing at the ford of Coldstream with the main part of the army.

Berwick was the first point of attack, lying on the other side of the Tweed in Scottish territory. It was the great port of Scotland, being the funnel through which the trade of the nation flowed. It is sometimes claimed that Berwick was the richest seaport in the whole island; at any rate, the customs receipts were one fourth of the total revenue of all English ports. The Tweed had cut a deep channel where the city perched on the north bank behind its fortifications. The inhabitants of the city, with the arrogance of their wealth and their vast trade alliances, believed themselves safe from aggression. This opinion grew when the English fleet, which sailed in to attack them from the sea, was repulsed with a loss of many s.h.i.+ps. William the Douglas, a stout fighting man, commanded the garrison. The defenses consisted of a stockade surrounded by a ditch. The stockade was not high and it was not in good condition, and the ditch was not wide. Nevertheless, when Edward moved up to the a.s.sault, the citizens lined the top of the stockade and jeered at him, chanting a bit of doggerel at his expense: What meaneth King Edward, with his long shanks,

To win Berwick and all our unthanks.

It seems rather trivial, but Edward was infuriated. It is probable that the name of Longshanks, which history elected to apply to him, dates from this episode. His legs were not unnaturally long. He stood six feet two in his prime, but when his tomb was opened long after his death it was found that he had been perfectly proportioned.

The confidence of the burghers was sadly misplaced. Enraged by the loss of his vessels and the taunts from the walls, Edward led the attacking party in person. The stockade was so low at one place that the king on his great stallion Bayard leaped over the ditch and then over the stockade. The foot soldiers followed in such numbers that the defenders were easily scattered.

The garrison of the castle surrendered on terms that permitted them to march out, but the poor citizens were less fortunate. The fighting rage in the English king had been increased by the death of his nephew, Richard of Cornwall, in the struggle, and he gave orders that all the men of the town were to be put to the sword. Sitting in the great hall where he had announced the result of the arbitration, Edward turned a deaf ear to all appeals to stop the slaughter. It was not until a procession of priests came into his presence, carrying the Host, that his mood changed. When the eyes of this strangely contradictory man rested on the Host, he burst into tears and gave orders that the carnage was to stop.

The number of the victims of the butchery of Berwick has been placed at different figures, but the lowest estimate is eight thousand, so it may be a.s.sumed that at least that number perished.

The Scottish people retaliated in kind. The Earl of Buchan, constable of Scotland, was leading a foray into the English territory in the west. When the news of Berwick reached these levies, they proceeded to sack the towns that fell into their hands with equal ferocity, and a mutual hatred was engendered which was to last for centuries.

Before proceeding deeper into Scottish territory, the English king set his troops the task of rebuilding the fortifications of Berwick, raising the walls higher and deepening the ditch. To set an example of industry, he himself wheeled out the first barrow, piled high with mortar and stones. He proceeded also to put the affairs of the city on a better basis, improving the laws and appointing capable men to administer them. The citizens, who hated him for his cruelty, were compelled to say later that he had done them a service in the model administration he gave them.

Before attacking Berwick, Edward had sent a summons to the new Scottish king and his lords to meet him at Newcastle. While still engaged in restoring the fortifications of the captured city, an answer was received in which John renounced his fealty and defied the invaders.

"The false fool!" cried Edward, the royal anger rousing again. "What folly is this? If he will not come to us, we will go to him."

So the English army, horse and foot, reinforced with Welsh bowmen and levies from Ireland, moved up from the Tweed. They crossed the Blackadder and the Lammermuir Hills and met the Scottish army, fresh from its invasion of c.u.mberland, and defeated it at Spottswood without any difficulty. The castle at Dunbar capitulated, and through the month of May the way to Edinburgh was cleared, Haddington, Roxburgh, and other towns falling to the invaders. On a day in early June, Edward came within sight of the capital city of Edinburgh.

That solid and admirable city, which the inhabitants themselves would later call Auld Reekie, was a mixture of splendor and wretchedness at this stage of its history. The castle, which topped an abruptly high hill, was not only a strong fortress but a residence of royal magnificence by the standards of the day. The city, cl.u.s.tering at the base of the hill, had been described some generations before as a small cl.u.s.ter of thatched and mean houses. David I had laid the groundwork for better things, however, by founding the Abbey of Holyrood on the edge of the town. A connecting link of houses began to grow along a spine of high land, and in time this new section, which was to be known as Canongate, became a prosperous commercial center. When the first Parliament was held in 1215 in Edinburgh during the reign of Alexander II, there was a High Street leading up to Castle Rock, on which cl.u.s.tered busy shops, and there was a section around Candle-makers Row where the artisans found employment. The peaked spires of churches, the swinging signboards of taverns, and the crenelated tops of manorial houses were beginning to lend dignity to the old town.

The English marched into Edinburgh without encountering opposition, but the castle held out for eight days. Edward moved on then to Stirling, where the castle had been deserted on his approach, and from there he progressed to Perth. At the latter place he received notice of King John's submission, that most spineless of rulers lacking the heart for protracted resistance. Edward received from him at Montrose the white rod, symbol of surrender, and promptly deposed him. Baliol was sent under armed guard to England and took no further part in the dramatic struggle between the two countries. At first he was a prisoner in the Tower of London, but the Pope interceded for him and he was allowed to go into exile on the continent. Here he lived in obscurity on his small French estates, not dying until 1315 and so knowing of the efforts of two brave leaders who rose after him to direct the resistance of the Scots.

After marching as far north as Elgin, receiving the submissions of the gentry everywhere, Edward returned to Berwick. He brought with him the Coronation Stone of Scone and the cross of Halyrudhouse, which was called the Black Rood. Nothing he could have done was more certain to create lasting enmity than his removal of the Coronation Stone. It remained an issue down through the centuries; and it is a sore point with the Scottish people at the present time, as witness the daring seizure of it, and its temporary removal to Scotland, in 1950.

At Berwick the English king received the submission of most of the Scottish leaders, the list filling thirty-five skins of parchment. This historic doc.u.ment was called the Ragman Roll for reasons not entirely clear, unless it was a term of contempt coined by the Scottish people. For an equally obscure reason the name became corrupted to the word "rigmarole," which has made a permanent place for itself in the English language.

Edward had needed less than twenty-one weeks to bring about the submission of the country.

CHAPTER X.

William Wallace

1.

THE Scottish cause seemed hopeless. Their armies had dispersed and their leaders had sworn fealty to the conquering Edward. Their short-reigning and inglorious king had been deposed and was living abroad in exile. The Bruces, who were next in line for the succession, had thrown in with the English and were living on their English estates. Edward had placed his own garrisons in all the strong castles of Scotland and had appointed a group of hard-fisted officials to administer the country: John de Warenne as governor, Walter de Agmondesham as chancellor, William de Ormesby as justiciar, and Hugo de Cressingham as treasurer.

What the prostrate country north of the Tweed needed was a leader. When he came-and fortunately he appeared quickly-he was neither of the aristocracy nor of the people; he was from in between, the second son of a rather humble knight of Elderslie in Renfrew. His name was William Wallace and he was quite young when his rise to fame began; probably in his very early twenties, although there is much conjecture on this score, as there is indeed about almost everything that applies to the life of this remarkable man. He was, of course, a great fighting man and a born leader. The claymore (the dread two-edged broadsword of Scotland) became in his mighty hand a weapon to beat down antagonists and to shear through the strongest armor.

Years after his death an ancient lady, the widow of one of the lords of Erskine, who was living in the castle of Kinnoull, was visited by a later king of Scotland in search of information about Wallace. She had seen both Wallace and Bruce when she was a girl, she told the king. She affirmed without any hesitation that, although Robert the Bruce excelled most men in strength and skill with weapons, he was not to be compared with Wallace in either respect. In wrestling, she a.s.serted, the knight from Elderslie could overcome several such as Bruce.

The answers she may have given to other questions have not been preserved, unfortunately, and so the chance to know Wallace as a man through the eyes of an acquaintance has been lost. Was he tall or short? Dark or fair? Was he handsome of mien? There is not a sc.r.a.p of reliable evidence on any such points. It is believed, but largely because of his accomplishments, that he had the eye of a great leader; an eye that kindled in the threat of danger, that commanded loyalty, that shone like a beacon in the fury of battle; a cler aspre eyn, lik dyamondis brycht.

William Wallace has been a controversial figure for centuries. At first the long rhymed narrative of Henry the Minstrel, better known as Blind Harry (although now it is not even conceded that he was blind), was the chief source for the Wallace story. Blind Harry lived nearly two hundred years after the events of which he told. He made his living as a wandering minstrel, his stock in trade being a long narrative poem about Wallace, nearly twelve thousand lines in length, which he had written himself and committed to memory. For this epic effort he had drawn on the legends which were still in circulation in the country during his youth. Undoubtedly he had added to them and had depended on imagination whenever he deemed it necessary. The poem fortunately is still in existence, written in the Lothian dialect. Many editions of it have been printed. It has exceeded in sales all other publications in Scotland with the exception of the works of Bobby Burns and Sir Walter Scott. That Blind Harry lived the precarious life of a wandering minstrel is generally accepted, because in his old age he was granted a pension by James IV of eighteen s.h.i.+llings twice a year.

His version of the appearance of Wallace is summed up in one line, Proportionyt lang and favr was his wesage. He becomes rather more detailed as to the "wesage" by declaring, Bowand bron haryt, on browis and brois lycht, which means "wavy brown hair on brows and eyebrows light."

Historians and antiquarians are disposed to accept little of the old minstrel's story, knowing that so much of it is spurious; and that leaves them with the barest of bones from which to construct a figure of this heroic man. It is generally a.s.sumed that he was born at Elderslie near Ayr, that his father held his land of James the Steward, that his mother was a daughter of Sir Hugh Crawford, sheriff of Ayr. He had two brothers, Malcolm the elder, and John the younger. William is supposed to have gone with his mother at some crisis to find protection in the household of a powerful relative at Kilspindie in the Ca.r.s.e of Gowrie and to have completed his education, such as it was, at the seminary attached to the cathedral of Dundee. Blind Harry's story that the boy stayed with an uncle in holy orders at Dunipace is not accepted now, which throws doubt on one of the most popular anecdotes: that he had one Latin verse dunned into his head by this uncle which went as follows: My son, I tell thee soothfastlie,

No gift is like to libertie:

Then never live in slaverie.

There were countless valiant souls in Scotland not content to live in "slaverie" after Edward left the country, convinced that he had stamped out all resistance. They began to manifest themselves in Galloway, Ross, Argyll, and Aberdeens.h.i.+re. In the spring of the year following Edward's departure, a stout knight named Andrew de Moray led an outbreak which threatened to weaken the English hold on the north of Scotland.

Had the spirit of Wallace been less resolute, he might have been daunted by the strength with which the English held that part of the Upper Plain where so many hundreds of small streams feed the volume of the Clyde. A discerning eye on Tinto Top might see Dumbarton Castle and the castle at Ayr, swanriing with English soldiery, and the town of Lanark, where one William de Heselrig held down all resistance with an iron hand. There was nothing here of the majestic aloofness and strength of the mountains in the Highlands, nothing but sloping plain and moor and a few hills which were rounded and accessible; no country, this, for the only type of warfare open to patriotic Scots, the kind that later would be called "guerrilla." Nevertheless, Wallace soon became known as the daring leader of a small band of patriots who struck here and there at unexpected times, who appeared and disappeared and led the occupying forces a wild and unprofitable chase. His most spectacular feat was an attack with thirty men on the headquarters of Heselrig in Lanark, in which the English sheriff was killed. It was long believed that in retaliation the English destroyed the home of Wallace and killed his wife, whose maiden name was Marion Broadfute. Blind Henry was the sole authority for this anecdote. Wallace did kill William de Heselrig, but he did not possess a home and he was not married.

That Wallace quickly won a nationwide reputation is proof that he possessed a genius for warfare. He was not as favored as an earlier guerrilla fighter in the first stages of the French invasion of England to unseat the hated John, the colorful Willikin of the Weald. Willikin kept a large part of the French army in continuous alarm; but he had the dark, thick forests of the Weald into which he could disappear and from which he could emerge at the most unexpected times. Wallace was ringed about by the strongly held castles already mentioned and he operated in a country which was better suited to farming than to the strike-and-run-and-strike-again tactics of the guerrillas. As he lacked the thickets, deep gorges, and high wooded hills for concealment, it must have been that his safety was a.s.sured by the silent aid of the country folk. Even this would not have sufficed entirely, for the shepherd seldom left his sheep run and the farmer's feet were chained to his tilled fields. There were many wandering friars in the Lowlands, particularly the Culdees, the Allies of G.o.d, who had left the monastic life of their round bare towers for a secular addiction to the care of the sick and the poor. These lowly friars, moving about so quietly, may have supplied the eyes for the irregular troops fighting so successfully under Wallace.

Wallace, for some such reason, seemed to have a charmed life. The alien governors of the country angrily demanded that an end be made to the raids of de Waleys, and word of his activities reached even to the ears of Edward, stalemated in an abortive campaign against the French in Flanders. It followed that when a few of the Scottish n.o.bility decided the time was ripe to organize the forces of revolt, they turned to William Wallace as one of the leaders.

2.