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Scotch-Irish
Source Information: Hanna, Charles A. The Scotch-Irish: The Scot in North Britain, North Ireland, and North America Vol.1 New York, NY: G. P. Putnam, 1902.
CHAPTER X SCOTTISH ACHIEVEMENT
Do we speak of war, a thousand Scotch names rise above all the heroes: Wallace
at Stirling; Bruce,at Bannockburn; Wolfe's Scottish soldiers at the Heights of
Abraham; Forbes at Fort Duquesne; Stark at Bennington; Campbell at King's
Mountain; Scott at Lundy s Lane; Perry on Lake Erie; Grant at Appomattox. Were
not Wellington and Napier Scotch?
James I. was anxious to place a garrison there that would be
able not only to shut the door, but to keep it shut, in the face of his French
or Spanish enemies; and, accordingly, when an attempt was made at the Revolution
to force the door, the garrison was there--the advanced outpost of English
power--to shut it in the face of the planter's grandson, and so to save the
liberties of England at the most critical moment in its history. One may see (as
Hugh Miller did) in the indomitable firmness of the besieged at Deror the spirit
of their ancestors under Wallace and Bruce, and recognize in the gallant
exploits of the Enniskillen men under Gustavus Hamilton, routing two of the
forces despatched to attack them, and compelling a third to retire, a repetition
of the thrice-fought and thrice-won battle of Roslin ....
CHAPTER XI THE TUDOR-STUART CHURCH RESPONSIBLE FOR EARLY AMERICAN ANIMOSITY
TO ENGLAND
But in a great body of the people outside of New England the causes were deeper
and of more ancient origin. Their enmity to England and the English government
dated far back from the beginning of history. It was not unlike the feeling of
the Roman Catholic Irish in America toward England at the present day. The Scots
were the hereditary foes of the English kings. Their battles with the English
had made of the Scottish Lowlands one vast armed camp and battle-field during
the larger part of a period of five centuries after the year 1000.13 Their
forbears were "Scots who had wi' Wallace
bled." They were children of the men who had fought the English at Stirling
Bridge, at Bannockburn, and "on Flodden's dark field." Their fathers
also had perished in countless numbers before the malignant fury of the Anglican
Establishment. For worshipping God as their consciences dictated they had been
hunted like wild beasts by the merciless dragoons of the bishops;
CHAPTER XII WHO ARE THE SCOTCH-IRISH?
The two counties which have been most thoroughly transformed by this emigration
are the two which are nearest Scotland, and were the first opened up for
emigrants. These two have been completely altered in nationality and religion.
They have become British, and in the main, certainly Scottish. Perhaps no better
proof can be given than the family names of the inhabitants. Some years ago, a
patient local antiquary took the voters' list of county Down "of those
rated above L12 for poor-rates," and analyzed it carefully. There were
10,028 names on the list, and these fairly represented the whole proper names of
the county. He found that the following names occurred oftenest, and arranged
them in order of their frequency: Smith, Martin, M'Kie, Moore, Brown,
Thompson, Patterson, Johnson, Stewart, Wilson, Graham, Campbell, Robinson, Bell,
Hamilton, Morrow, Gibson, Boyd, Smith, Martin, M'Kie, Moore, Brown,
Thompson, Patterson, Johnson, Stewart, Wilson, Graham, Campbell, Robinson, Bell,
Hamilton, Morrow, Gibson, Boyd, Wallace, and Magee. Smith, Moore, Boyd, Johnson, M'Millan, Brown, Bell, Campbell, M'Neill,
Crawford, M'Alister, Hunter, Macaulay, Robinson, Wallace, Millar, Kennedy, and
Hill. Ayrshire
"Muir,"
and that the Annandale "Johnstones" have been merged by the
writer in the English "Johnsons." One other point is very
striking--that the great Ulster name of O'Neill is wanting, and also the
Antrim "Macdonnel." . . . Another strong proof of the Scottish
blood of the Ulstermen may be found by taking the annual reports presented to
the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, held in June, 1887.
Here are the names of the men, lay and clerical, who sign these reports, the
names being taken as they occur: J. W. Whigham, Jackson Smith, Hamilton Magee,
Thomas Armstrong, William Park, J. M. Rodgers, David Wilson, George Macfarland,
Thomas Lyle, W. Rogers, J. B. Wylie, W. Young, E. F. Simpson, Alexander
Turnbull, John Malcolm, John H. Orr. Probably the reports of our three Scottish
churches taken together could not produce so large an average of Scottish
surnames.-- The Scot in Ulster, Edinburgh, 1888, pp. 103-105.
CHAPTER XIII SCOTLAND OF TO-DAY
In this district are to be found the chief evidences in Scotland of the birth or
residence of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Dumbartonshire is
the reputed birthplace of St. Patrick, Ireland's teacher and patron saint.
Elderslie, in Renfrewshire, is said to have been the birthplace of Scotland's
national hero, William
Wallace. Robert Bruce also,
son of Marjorie, Countess of Carrick and daughter of Nigel or Niall (who was
himself the Celtic Earl of Carrick and grandson of Gilbert, son of Fergus, Lord
of Galloway), was, according to popular belief, born at his mother's castle of
Turnberry, in Ayrshire. The seat of the High Stewards of Scotland, ancestors of
the royal family of the Stuarts, was in Renfrewshire. The paternal grandfather
of William Ewart Gladstone was born in Lanarkshire. John Knox's father is said
to have belonged to the Knox family of Renfrew-shire. Robert Burns was born in
Ayrshire. The sect called the "Lollards," who were the earliest
Protestant reformers in Scotland, appear first in Scottish history as coming
from Kyle in Ayrshire, the same district which afterwards furnished a large part
of the leaders and armies of the Reformation. The Covenanters and their armies
of the seventeenth century were mainly from the same part of the kingdom.
Glasgow, the greatest manufacturing city of Europe, is situated in the heart of
this district.
CHAPTER XX FROM MALCOLM CANMORE TO KING DAVID
When David I., who married an English countess who had numerous vassals,
ascended the throne in 1124, he is said to have been followed at
successive periods, by no fewer than a thousand Anglo-Normans. During the reign
of this monarch, Hugh de Morville, amongst others, came to Scotland, and,
besides being appointed High Constable, was endowed with vast grants of land. He
possessed the greater part of Cuninghame, and, under his auspices, a
number of families, who afterwards rose to high feudal distinction, were settled
in that district. The Loudoun family, who assumed the name of the lands
as their patronymic, were Anglo-Normans. So were the progenitors of the
Cuninghames. The Rosses were also vassals of Hugh de Morville. Godfrey de Ros acquired the lands of
Stewarton from Richard de
Morville. Stephen, the son of Richard, obtained lands in Cuninghame,
which he called Stephen's-tun (Stephenston of the present day). The Lock-harts
of Lanarkshire and Ayrshire are of Anglo-Norman descent. Simond, the son of
Malcolm, who settled in Lanarkshire, held lands under the Stewart family in
Kyle, which he called Syming-tun, now Symington. The Colvilles, who
possessed Ochiltree for some time, were from England. The Mont-gomeries of Eaglesham,
and subsequently of Eglintoun, were Norman, and vassals of Walter the
High Steward, who obtained the greater part of Ren-frewshire. A brother of
Walter is conjectured, upon good grounds, to have been the ancestor of the Boyds.
The Stewarts were themselves Anglo-Nor-mans, as were also the Bruces of
Annandale and Carrick. The Wallaces
of Kyle are supposed to have been of Norman descent [very improbable],
from one Eimerus Galleius, whose name appears as a witness to the charter of the
Abbey of Kelso, founded by David I. That the progenitors of the Hero of Scotland
came from England is further held to be countenanced by the fact that there
existed in London, in the thirteenth century, certain persons of the name of Waleis;
but none of our historians or genealogists have been able to trace the slightest
family connection between them; neither is it known at what period, if Norman or
English, they settled in Scotland. The first of the name on record is Richard
Walense, who witnesses a charter to the monks of Paisley, by Walter the High
Steward, before the year 1174. The name came to be afterwards softened to
Waleys or Wallace.
In the absence of direct proof to the contrary, it is not unreasonable to
conjecture that the Wallaces
were native Scots. Some consider them to have been Welsh, apparently without
reference to the fact that the Alcluydensians are often confounded in history by
the terms British and Welsh. Long after the
Alcluyd kingdom had been destroyed, the inhabitants -- the descendants of the
Damnii--were known by the appellation of Walenses.
It is therefore probable that the ancestors of Wallace adopted the patronymic of
Walense,
in the same way that Inglis is known to have been assumed from English, or
Fleming from the Flemings. This is strongly countenanced by the fact that the
name of the family was originally Walens. The coincidence is at all events
curious, and not without interest. The property of Richard
Walens may have been called
Richardtun, in accordance with the prevailing Saxon custom of the
time--not because he was himself of English extraction. The Flemings, who were
all foreigners, came to be so numerous in Scotland that they were privileged to
be governed by their own laws. The list of lowland clans, amounting in all to
thirty-nine, if it is authentic, which is very doubtful, as given in the
recently published MS. of Bishop Leslie, who wrote during the reign of Queen
Mary, shows that the greater number were of Saxon or Norman extraction. The
following is the list: Armstrong, Barclay, Brodie, Bruce, Colquhoun, Comyn,
Cuninghame, Cranstoun, Crawford, Douglas, Drummond, Dunbar, Dundas, Erskine,
Forbes, Gordon, Graham, Hamilton, Hay, Home, Johnstone, Kerr, Lauder, Leslie,
Lindsay, Maxwell, Montgomerie, Murray, Ogilvie, Oliphant, Ramsay, Rose, Ruthven,
Scott, Seton, Sinclair, Urquhart, Wallace, Wemyss.
CHAPTER XXI WILLIAM THE LION
It was the charter and feudal tenure which gradually converted the native
proprietary of Scotia into "lairds of that ilk," henceforth
undistinguishable amongst the general feudal baronage. At the battle of the
Standard, Earl Malise of Strathern was the champion of the
anti-feudal combatants. Forty years later his grandson, Gilbert, was as
thoroughly a feudal baron as the latest Norman settler, granting charters sealed
with the device of a mounted knight in armor, and with a novelty yet more
unusual, a shield emblazoned with arms. It is scarcely possible to doubt that a
similar change was in progress in many other parts of the kingdom besides
Strathern. Not only in Scotland, but throughout Europe the shifting patronymic
marks the prevalence of the early benefice, when all who claimed a provision in
right of their birth and descent were known by the name of their immediate
ancestors, the vier anen giving the title to the birthright which was
subsequently founded on the charter. It was not until the benefice became the
feud, after the temporary and renewable provision became the inalienable and
hereditary property, that it conferred a more or less permanent name upon its
owner, all early surnames being invariably "of that ilk "-- the
proprietor being named from his property. At the opening of the twelfth century,
or at any rate at the close of the eleventh, the territorial surname was unknown
throughout Scotland from the Pentland Firth to the Tweed; and the same might
also be said of England. Very few names, indeed, of this description were
brought into England by the followers of the Conqueror,--none certainly existed
before their arrival,--and wherever a Norman name is found that does not occur
in Domesday, it may be safely assumed that, however old its standing, it
represents a later emigrant from the Continental duchy rather than one of the
combatants at Hastings. The descendants of the latter generally adopted the
names of those properties in England which they had won with the sword. Many a
Norman name penetrated into Scotland, the majority territorial, whether derived
from English or Norman fiefs, which would seem to place their arrival in the
reigns of David and William. Others again settled in Scotland before they had
acquired a name of this description, the race of Flahald assuming a name from
their hereditary office of steward--for the son of Walter Fitz Alan was
known as Alan Fitz Walter-- whilst the appellation of Masculus, la Male,
attached to a family of great importance in early times, seems to have been
perpetuated with the old broad pronunciation under the form of Maule. The
race often gave the name; Fleming and Inglis would have appeared in the charters
as Flandrensis and Anglicus; the first ancestor of the great border clan of Scot
must have stood out amongst the Saxons of the Lothians as Scotus, the
Gael; whilst the name of Walensis,
or le Waleys,
given to the progenitors of Wallace,
marks the forefathers of the great Scottish champion to have been Cumbro-Britons
of Strathclyde. From the frequent occurrence of an addition, such as
Flandrensis, to the name of the first recipient of a charter, it may be assumed,
that in its absence, and where no district
CHAPTER XXIII WALLACE AND BRUCE
Not long afterwards, the peace of the newly established English dependency was
disturbed by rumors of disorders in the west. It was said that one William
Wallace, a native of the ancient kingdom of Strathclyde,3 had there slain the
sheriff of Lanark, a high officer of the English crown. Having committed some
offence for which he became an object of suspicion to the English authorities,
according to the legendary accounts, the sheriff of Lanark attacked his place of
abode and killed his wife or mistress. Wallace is said to have retaliated by
killing the sheriff, and thus to have become an outlaw. Associating with himself
some friends of kindred spirit, he soon gave the English authorities more
abundant cause for believing him to be a man of desperate character. Having
received numerous accessions to his little band of warriors, and aided by the
presence and support of a brave knight named Sir William Douglas, Wallace,
in May, 1297, planned to capture the English High Justiciary, who was
then holding his court at Scone (Perth). That official saved himself from being
taken by a hurried departure from the country. Thereupon, a season of war and
anarchy ensued in western Scotland. Armed bands ravaged the country, killing
and. driving out the English officials; and, where there was show of success,
storming and destroying their abodes. The insurrection seems to have arisen
mainly in the western Lowlands, in that district comprising Galloway and
Strathclyde, which had ever been the most turbulent and troublesome part of the
kingdom south of the Highlands. Toward Galloway the most of the rebellious bands
accordingly made their way. Many of the Scottish barons also
In William Wallace,
however, his countrymen found the incarnation of all those noble and heroic
traits apotheosized in the reputed character of the mythical Tell. Scorning
submission to the English, resolutely determined to free his country from
Edward's grasp, and perhaps lacking only the opportunity to mete out fitting
punishment to those barons who had deserted their nation's cause, Wallace
did not for a moment relax his efforts to make the revolution general, nor cease
in his hostile operations against the invaders. Notwithstanding the defection of
the barons, his army continued daily to increase in strength and numbers. He
laid siege to the castle of Dundee. While there, he received intelligence of the
English army's movement toward Stirling. Hastening with all his forces to
the passage of the Forth, he there posted his troops on the north bank of the
river and prepared to intercept the progress of the enemy. On September 12, 1297,
the English approached, fifty thousand strong,6 and attempted to cross over on
the long, narrow bridge which at that place spanned the channel. They were led
by Hugh de Cressingham, King Edward's Treasurer for Scotland. A
considerable body, consisting of about half the English force, soon passed the
bridge, and then made ready to form on the other side. Wallace,
awaiting this opportunity, instantly pounced down upon them with the Scots, cut
off their communication with the other side, and at once charged on the divided
body with all his forces. Taking them at such a disadvantage, his onslaught was
irresistible and proved sufficient to carry the day. Cressingham was
slain; his troops were mown down like blades of grass; and such as escaped death
by the sword were pushed into the river and drowned. A panic seized the
remainder of the English soldiers on the south bank of the river. They burned
the bridge, abandoned their baggage, fled in terror to Berwick, hastened on into
England, and Scotland was once more free.
This brilliant success was immediately followed by the
surrender of Dundee Castle and the evacuation of Berwick; and then
Wallace led his victorious
army into England and wasted all the country as far south as
Newcastle.
During the progress of these operations Edward had been absent in Flanders. Upon
his return in the early part of the year 1298, having first vainly
summoned the Scottish barons to meet him in a Parliament at York, he assembled
an army and marched toward the Border. At this time, as we have seen, Wallace
had the active support of but a few of the Scottish noblemen, the great majority
being deterred from taking up arms through fear of Edward or by reason of their
jealousy of Wallace. Among his followers, however, were John Comyn of Badenoch, Sir
John Stewart of Bon-kill, brother to the Steward, Sir John Graham of
Abercorn, Macduff, the granduncle of the Earl of Fife, and young Robert
Bruce, Earl of Carrick. The leader last named guarded the castle of Ayr.
Edward first sent a fleet around through the Firth of Forth under the command of
the Earl of Pembroke. A landing was made in Fife, where Wallace attacked
and defeated the force in the battle of Black Ironside Forest, June 12,
1298.
After the disastrous defeat at Falkirk, Wallace resigned his office as governor
of Scotland, and in the summer of 1299, William Lamberton, Bishop of St.
Andrews, Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, and John Comyn of Badenoch, the
younger, were chosen guardians of the kingdom in his place. Soon afterwards they
besieged and took Stirling Castle. From this time on the name of Wallace
as a national leader
disappears from the records of the councils and conflicts of Scotland.
After Edward had again conquered the greater part of the kingdom, he assembled a
Parliament at St. Andrews which pronounced sentence of outlawry against
Scotland's hero, and a price was set upon his head. Wallace
was afterwards betrayed to the English, in 1303, by a false friend, Sir
John, son of Walter Stewart, Earl of Mentieth. Having been arraigned at
Westminster as a traitor to Edward and a destroyer of the lives and property of
many of the English king's subjects, he was sentenced to death, August 23, 1305,
and immediately executed under circumstances of the most barbaric and revolting
cruelty.
Wallace's
torture added one more item, and that a very heavy one, to the list of Scottish
grievances against the English. No doubt it had a full and lasting effect in
arousing the national spirit for that supreme contest with the invaders which
almost immediately followed. Thus even by his death Wallace
served the cause of his country in a degree by no means the least.
his government was little more than a nominal one. The nobles were bound to
furnish the king with an agreed number of soldiers in case of war, but their own
jurisdiction over the rights and liberties of their vassals and followers was
well-nigh supreme. Indeed, this authority continued, though in a more restricted
degree, for nearly two centuries after the War of Independence; and it was not
until the time of the later Stuarts that the power of the nobles was appreciably
lessened. The career of Wallace,
however, and the success of his volunteer armies is the first recorded instance
we have of any great national assertion on the part of the people themselves,
aside from the personal wars of their hereditary masters.
The period of Wallace
and Bruce also marks the close in Scotland of the Feudal Era, which had been
inaugurated by David and his successors somewhat more than a century
before. The plan of campaigning necessarily carried on by the Scots in their
contests with the vastly superior forces of Edward's armored knights was
probably the inception in Great Britain of our modern system of warfare, wherein
more attention is paid to ensuring the intelligence and efficiency of the
individual soldier in the ranks, together with his proper arming, than to the
construction of massive fortifications or the glorification of knightly
valor.
The Chronicon de Lanercost, one of the most interesting of the northern
chronicles, was probably written by a Minorite friar of the convent at Carlisle.
It covers the period from 1201 to 1346, being a contemporary account of
events during the time of Wallace
and Bruce, and is
considered one of the most valuable records of border history (Bannatyne Club,
1839).
The Scalacronica of Sir Thomas Gray of Heton. This is a chronicle of
England and Scotland from 1066 to 1362. The author's father was an
esquire under the Sheriff of Lanark at the time of his encounter with William
Wallace;
and the son has preserved an account of that affair. The book is especially
useful for the period of the Scottish wars with England.
The Book of the Brus, by John Barbour. The author was
born about 1316, and died March 13, 1395, some twenty years after
the completion of his book. This work also is in metrical form, but,
notwithstanding, it is a most useful contribution to historical literature, and
a chief source for the details of the Scottish War of Independence, and of the
life of Scotland's greatest warrior and king. It is the great national epic of
the country, and occupies a similar place in the literature of Scotland to the
Odyssey in that of Greece; although perhaps never so popular with the people as
the legendary narrative of the achievements of Wallace,
which appeared about a century later. Bar-bour's very full and spirited
description of the battle of Bannockburn, by which independence was won,
is followed closely by later historians in giving the details of that event.The
Acts and Deeds of Wallace
was the production of a writer who goes by the name of Henry the Minstrel,
or Blind Harry. His work consists of a rhyming and fabulous account of
the achievements of Scotland's national hero. The full name of the author is
unknown. He is supposed to have been a wandering minstrel who, about 1460,
set down in writing a connected series of the rhyming doggerel verses which he
had been accustomed to sing from house to house. Being written about a century
and a half after Wallace's death, the work no doubt embodied all the accumulated
traditions and embellishments of the period in which it appeared.
His Achievements, written by Blind Harry, has been long a popular book in
Scotland. It would be lost labour to search for the age, name, and condition of
an author who either knew not history, or who meant to falsify it. (See M'Kenzie,
Lives of Scots Writers, vol. i., p. 422.) A few examples may serve to prove the
spirit of this romancer. He always speaks of Aymer de Valloins, Earl
of Pembroke, as a false Scottish knight. He mentions Sir Richard Lundin
as one of Wallace's
coadjutors at the battle of Stirling, whereas he was of the opposite party, and
indeed was, to all appearance, the only man of true judgment in the whole
English army. B. vi., c. 4, he says that one Sir Hugh, sister's son of Edward L,
went, in the disguise of a herald, to Wallace's
camp, was detected, and instantly beheaded; that Wallace
surprised Edward's army at Biggar, and with his own hand slew the Earl of
Kent; that many thousands of the English fell in the engagement,
particularly the second son of the King of England, his brother Sir Hugh, and
his two nephews--Hailes, Annals of Scotland, vol. i., p. 269.
ander de Lindesay, Sir Richard de Lundin, and Sir William Douglas. Robert
Wisheart, Bishop of Glasgow, negotiated the treaty. Wallace ascribed the conduct
of Wisheart to traitorous pusillanimity. In the first heat of resentment,
he flew to the Bishop's house, pillaged its effects, and led his family captive.
The story, however, is not inconsistent with probability. I cannot say so much
for the famous story of the barns of Ayr. It is asserted that Wallace,
accompanied by Sir John
Graham, Sir
John Mentieth, and Alexander
Scrymgeour, Constable of
Dundee, went into the west
of Scotland to chastise the men of Galloway, who had espoused the party of the
Comyns and the English; that, on the 28th August, 1298, they set fire
to some granaries in the neighhour-hood of Ayr, and burnt the English cantoned
in them (A. Blair, p. 5; J. Major, fol. 70). This relation is liable to much
suspicion. 1. Sir John Graham could have no share in the enterprise, for
he was killed at Falkirk 22d July, I298. 2. Comyn the younger, of Badenoch, was
the only man of the name of Comyn who had any interest in Galloway, and he was
at that time of Wallace's party. 3. It is not probable that Wallace would have
undertaken such an enterprise immediately after the discomfiture at Folkirk. I
believe that this story took its rise from the pillaging of the English quarters
about the time of the treaty of Irvine in 1297, which, as being an
incident of little consequence, I omitted in the course of this history. (See W.
Hemingford, t. i., p. 123.)--Hailes, Annals of Scotland, vol. i., p. 280.
"It would be tedious and unprofitable to recite all that has been said on
this subject by our own writers from Fordun to Abercrombie: How Wallace,
Stewart, and Comyn quarreled on the punctilio of leading the van of
an army which stood on the defensive; how Stewart compared Wallace
to "an owl with borrowed feathers"; how the Scottish commanders,
busied in this frivolous altercation, had no leisure to form their army: how
Comyn traitorousIy withdrew 10,000 men; how Wallace,
from resentment, followed his example; how, by such disastrous incidents, the
Scottish army was enfeebled, and Stewart and his party abandoned to destruction.
Our histories abound in trash of this kind: there is scarcely one of our writers
who has not produced an invective against Comyn, or an apology for
Wallace, or a lamentation
over the deserted Stewart. What dissensions may have prevailed among the
Scottish commanders, it is impossible to know. It appears not to me that their
dissensions had any influence on their conduct in the day of battle. The truth
seems to be this: The English cavalry greatly exceeded the Scottish in numbers,
were infinitely better equipped, and more adroit: the Scottish cavalry were
intimidated, and fled. Had they remained on the field, they might have preserved
their honour; but they never could have turned the chance of that day. It was
natural, however, for such of the infantry as survived the engagement, to impute
their disaster to the defection of the cavalry. National pride would ascribe
their flight to treachery rather than to pusillanimity. It is not improbable
that Comyn commanded the cavalry; hence a report may have been spread
that Comyn betrayed his country; this report has been embellished by each
successive relator. When men are seized with a panic, their commander must from
necessity, or will from prudence, accompany them in their flight. Earl
Warrenne fled with his army, from Stirling to Berwick; yet Edward I. did not
punish him as a traitor or a coward.
"The tale of Comyn's treachery, and Wallace's
ill-timed resentment, may have gained credit, because it is a pretty tale, and
not improbable in itself. But it amazes me that the story of the congress of
Bruce and Wallace,
after the battle of Falkirk, should have gained credit. I lay aside the
full evidence which we now possess, 'that Bruce was not, at that time, of the
English party, nor present at the battle.' For it must be admitted that our
historians knew nothing of those circumstances which demonstrate the
impossibility of the congress. But the wonder is, that men of sound judgment
should not have seen the absurdity of a long conversation between the commander
of a flying army and one of the leaders of a victorious army. When Fordun
told the story, he placed 'a narrow but inaccessible glen' between the speakers.
Later historians have substituted the river Garron in the place of the
inaccessible glen, and they make Bruce and Wallace
talk across the river like two young declaimers from the pulpits in a school of
rhetoric."--Hailes, Annals of Scotland, vol. i., pp. 286-288.
it would certainly be a mistake to consider it a mere fabricated romance of a
peasant minstrel. It is much more than that. It is the garner into which has
been gathered all that harvest of popular legend about Wallace
which had been ripcuing for
nearly two centuries. We do not suppose that the author was at all scrupulous in
his treatment of traditions, or that he shrank from contributing his quota to
the general sum of patriotic fiction. Everywhere in the work there is evidence
of more than poetical license; but we are convinced that in the main it recites
and re-echoes the "gests" that had enraptured and amazed successive
generations of his countrymen. This, we have seen, was the opinion of the
learned and critical Major, in whose boyhood Blind Harry wrote; but no criticism
can possibly determine to what extent its "gests" are genuine deeds,
or where its history ends and mythology begins. Its outrageous perversions of
public and ascertained facts throw a cloud of suspicion over every incident and
circumstance in the poem, even when they are of such a nature as not to forbid
belief.--J. M. Ross, Scottish History and Literature, p. 76.
CHAPTER XXIV JOHN OF FORDUN'S ANNALS OF WALLACE AND BRUCE XCVIII RISE AND
FIRST START OF WILLIAM WALLACE
THE same year [1296]
William Wallace lifted up
his head from his den--as it were--and slew the English sheriff of Lanark,
a doughty and powerful man, in the town of Lanark. From that time, therefore,
there flocked to him all who were in bitterness of spirit, and weighed down
beneath the burden of bondage under the unbearable domination of English
despotism; and he became their leader. He was wondrously brave and bold, of
goodly mien, and boundless liberality; and, though, among the earls and lords of
the kingdom, he was looked upon as low born, yet his fathers rejoiced in the
honour of knighthood. His elder brother, also was girded with the knightly belt,
and inherited a landed estate which was large enough for his station, and which
he bequeathed, as a holding, to his descendants. So Wallace
overthrew the English on all sides; and gaining strength daily, he, in a short
time, by force, and by dint of his prowess, brought all the magnates of Scotland
under his sway, whether they would or not. Such of the magnates, moreover, as
did not thankfully obey his commands, he took and browbeat, and handed over to
custody, until they should utterly submit to his good pleasure. And when all had
thus been subdued, he manfully betook himself to the storming of the castles and
fortified towns in which the English ruled; for he aimed at quickly and
thoroughly freeing his country and overthrowing the enemy.
In the year 1297 the fame of William
Wallace was spread all
abroad, and, at length, reached the ears of the king of England; for the loss
brought upon his people was crying out. As the king, however, was intent upon
many troublesome matters elsewhere, he sent his treasurer, named Hugh of
Cres-singham, with a large force to repress this William's boldness, and to
bring the kingdom of Scotland under his sway. When, therefore, he heard of this
man's arrival, the aforesaid William,
then busy besieging the English who were in Dundee Castle, straightway intrusted
the care and charge of the siege of the castle to the burgesses of that town on
pain of loss of life and limb, and with his army marched on, with all haste,
towards Strivelyn [Stirling] to meet this Hugh. A battle was then fought,
on the 11th of September near Strivelyn, at the bridge over the
Forth. Hugh of Cressingham was killed, and all his army put to flight; some of
them were slain with the sword, others taken, others drowned in the waters. But,
through God, they were all overcome; and the aforesaid William gained a happy
victory, with no little praise. Of the nobles, on his sided the noble Andrew
of Moray alone, the father of Andrew, fell wounded.
The same year, William
Wallace, with his army,
wintered in England, from Hallowmas to Christmas; and after having burnt up the
whole land of Allerdale, and carried off some plunder, he and his men went back
safe and sound. The same year, moreover, on the 20th of August, all the
English--regular and beneficed clergy, as well as laymen--were, by this same
William, again cast out
from the kingdom of Scotland. And the same year, William
of Lamberton
was chosen bishop of Saint Andrews.
In the year 1298, the aforesaid king of England, taking it ill that he
and his should be put to so much loss and driven to such straits by William
Wallace, gathered together
a large army, and, having with him, in his company, some of the nobles of
Scotland to help him, invaded Scotland. He was met by the aforesaid William,
with the rest of the magnates of that kingdom; and a desperate battle was fought
near Falkirk, on the 22nd of July. William was put to flight, not without
serious loss both to the lords and to the common people of the Scottish nation.
For, on account of the ill-will, begotten of the spring of envy, which the
Comyns had conceived towards the said William,
they, with their accomplices, forsook the field, and escaped unhurt. On learning
their spiteful deed, the aforesaid William, wishing to save himself and his,
hastened to flee by another road. But alas! through the pride and burning envy
of both, the noble Estates [communitas] of Scotland lay wretchedly overthrown
throughout hill and dale, mountain and plain. Among these, of the nobles, John
Stewart, with his Brendans; Macduff, of Fife; and the
inhabitants thereof, were utterly cut off. But it is commonly said that Robert
of Bruce,--who was afterwards king of Scotland, but then fought on
the side of the king of England--was the means of bringing about this victory.
For, while the Scots stood invincible in their ranks, and could not be broken by
either force or stratagem, this Robert of Bruce went with one line, under
Anthony of Bek, by a long road round a hill, and attacked the Scots in
the rear; and thus these, who had stood invincible and impenetrable in front,
were craftily overcome in the rear. And it is remarkable that we seldom, if
ever, read of the Scots being overcome by the English, unless through the envy
of lords, or the treachery and deceit of the natives, taking them over to the
other side.
But after the
aforesaid victory, which was vouchsafed to the enemy through the treachery of
Scots, the aforesaid William
Wallace, perceiving, by
these and other strong proofs, the glaring wickedness of the Comyns and
their abettors, chose rather to serve with the crowd, than to be set over them,
to their ruin, and the grievous wasting of the people. So, not long after the
battle of Falkirk, at the water of Forth, he, of his own accord, resigned the
office and charge which he held, of guardian.
The same year, after the whole Estates of Scotland had made their submission to
the king of England, John Comyn, then guardian, and all the
magnates but William
Wallace, little by little,
one after another, made their submission unto him; and all their castles and
towns--except Strivelyn [Stirling] Castle, and the warden thereof--were
surrendered unto him. That year, the king kept Lent at Saint Andrews, where he
called together all the great men of the kingdom, and held his parliament; and
he made such decrees as he would, according to the state of the country--which,
as he thought, had been gotten and won for him and his successors forever--as
well as about the dwellers therein.
Just after Easter, in the year 1304, that same king besieged Strivelyn
[Stirling] Castle for three months without a break. For this siege, he commanded
all the lead of the refectory of Saint Andrews to be pulled down, and had it
taken away for the use of his engines. At last, the aforesaid castle was
surrendered and delivered unto him on certain conditions, drawn up in writing,
and sealed with his seal. But when he had got the castle, the king belied his
troth, and broke through the conditions: for William Oliphant, the warden
thereof, he threw bound into prison in London, and kept him a long time in
thrall. The same year, when both great and small in the kingdom of Scotland
(except William Wallace
alone) had made their submission unto him; when the surrendered castles and
fortified towns which had formerly been broken down and knocked to pieces, had
been all rebuilt, and he had appointed wardens of his own therein; and after all
and sundry of Scottish birth had tendered him homage, the king, with the Prince
of Wales, and his whole army, returned to England. He left, however, the chief
warden as his lieutenant, to amend and control the lawlessness of all the rest,
both Scots and English. He did not show his face in Scotland after this.
In the year 1305, William
Wallace was craftily and
treacherously taken by John of Menteith, who handed him over to the king
of England; and he was, in London, torn limb from limb, and, as a reproach to
the Scots, his limbs were hung on towers in sundry places throughout England and
Scotland.
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