The report of these horrors so shocked John Balliol, that he sent to renounce his allegiance to Edward, and to defy his power. "Felon and fool!" cried Edward, "if he will not come to us, we must go to him."
So frightful ravages were carried on by the English on one side and the Scots on the other, till a battle took place at Dunbar, which so utterly ruined the Scots, that they were forced to make submission, and Balliol sued for peace. But Edward would not treat with him as a king, and only sent Anthony Beck, the Bishop of Durham, to meet him at Brechin. He was forced to appear, and was declared a rebel, stripped of his crown and robes, and made to stand with a white rod in his hand, confessing that he had acted rebelliously, and that Edward had justly invaded his realm. After this humiliation, he resigned all his rights to Scotland, declaring himself worn out with the malice and fraud of the nation, which was probably quite true. He was sent at first to the Tower, but afterward was released, lived peaceably on his estates in France, and founded the college at Oxford that bears his name and arms.
The misfortunes endured by this puppet did not deter the Earl of Carrick from aspiring to his seat; but Edward harshly answered, "Have I nothing to do but to conquer kingdoms for you?" and sent him away with his eldest son, a third Robert Bruce, to pacify their own territories of Carrick and Annandale. Edward did nothing without law enough to make him believe himself in the right, and poor Balliol's forfeiture gave him, as he imagined, the power to assume Scotland as a fief of his own. He caused himself to be acknowledged as King of Scotland, destroyed the old Scottish charters, and transported to Westminster the Scottish crown and sceptre, together with the stone from Scone Abbey, on which, from time immemorial, the Kings of Scotland had been placed when crowned and anointed. All the castles were delivered up into his hands, and every noble in his dominions gave him the oath of allegiance, excepting one, William, Lord Douglas, who steadily refused, and was therefore carried off a prisoner to England, where he remained to the day of his death.
Edward did not come in as a severe or cruel conqueror; he gave privileges to the Scottish clergy, and re-instated the families of the barons killed in the war. Doubtless he hoped to do great good to the wild population, and bring them into the same order as the English; but the flaw in his title made this impossible; the Scots regarded his soldiery as their enemies and oppressors, and though the nobles had given in a self-interested adhesion to the new government, they abhorred it all the time, and the mutual hatred between the English garrisons and Scottish inhabitants led to outrages in which neither party was free from blame.
As Hereward the Saxon had been stirred up against the Norman invaders, so a champion arose who kept alive the memory of Scottish independence.
William Wallace was the younger son of Sir Malcolm Wallace of Ellerslie, near Paisley, one of the lesser gentry, not sufficiently high in rank to be required to take oaths to the English King. William was a youth of unusual stature, noble countenance, and great personal strength and skill in the use of arms, and he grew up with a violent hatred to the English usurpers, which various circumstances combined to foster. While very young, he had been fishing in the river Irvine, attended by a boy who carried his basket, when some English soldiers, belonging to the garrison of Ayr meeting him, insisted on seizing his trout. A fray took place, and Wallace killed the foremost Englishman with a blow from the butt of his fishing-rod, took his sword, and put the rest to flight.
This obliged him to fly to the hills. But in those lawless times such adventures soon blew over, and, a year or two after, he was walking in the market-place of Lanark, dressed in green, and with, a dagger by his side, when an Englishman, coming up, insulted him on account of his gay attire, and his passionate temper, thus inflamed, led to a fray, in which the Englishman was killed. He then fled to the house where he was lodging, and while the sheriff and his force were endeavoring to break in, the lady of the house contrived his escape by a back way to a rocky glen called the Crags, where he hid himself in a cave. The disappointed sheriff wreaked his vengeance on the unfortunate lady, slew her, and burnt the house.
Thenceforth Wallace was an outlaw, and the most implacable foe to the English. In his wild retreat he quickly gathered round him other men ill-used, or discontented, or patriotic, or lovers of the wild life which he led, and at their head he not only cut off the parties sent to seize him, but watched his opportunity for marauding on the English or their allies. There is a horrible story that the English governor of Ayr, treacherously inviting the Scottish gentry to a feast, hung them all as they entered, and that Wallace revenged the slaughter with equal cruelty by burning the English alive in their sleep in the very buildings where the murder took place, the Barns of Ayr, as they were called. The history is unauthenticated, but it is believed in the neighborhood of Ayr, and has been handed down by Wallace's Homer, Blind Harry, whose poem on the exploits of the Knight of Ellerslie was published sixty years from this time.
The fame of Wallace's prowess swelled his party, and many knights and nobles began to join him. He raised his banner in the name of King John of Scotland, and, with the help of another outlaw chief, Sir William Douglas, pounced on the English justiciary, Ormesby, while holding his court at Scone, put him to flight, and seized a large booty and many prisoners.
His forays were the more successful because the King was absent in England, and the Chancellor, Hugh Cressingham, was not well agreed with the lay-governor, John de Warrenne, Earl of Surrey. Many of the higher nobility took his side, among them the younger Robert Bruce; but as the English force began to be marshalled against him, they took flight for their estates, and returned to the stronger party. It may have been that they found that Wallace was not a suitable chief for more than a mere partisan camp; brave as he was, he could not keep men of higher rank in obedience. He lived by plunder, and horrible atrocities were constantly committed by his men, especially against such English clergy as had received Scottish preferment. Whenever one of these fell into their hands, his sacred character could not save him; his arms were tied behind his back, and he was thrown from a high bridge into a river, while the merciless Scots derided his agony.
Warrene and Cressingham drew together a mighty force, and marched to the relief of Stirling, which Wallace had threatened. The Scots had come together to the number of 40,000, but they had only 180 horse; and Warrenne had 50,000 foot and 1,000 horse. The Scots were, however, in a far more favorable position, encamped on the higher ground on the bank of the river Forth; and Warrenne, wishing to avoid a battle, sent two friars to propose terms. "Return to your friends," said Wallace; "tell them we came with no peaceful intent, but determined to avenge ourselves and set our country free. Let them come and attack us; we are ready to meet them beard to beard."
On hearing this answer, the English shouted to be led against the bold rebel; but the more prudent leaders thought it folly to attempt to cross the bridge, exposed as it, was to the enemy, but that a chosen body should cross a ford, attack them in the flank, and clear the way. Cressingham thought this policy timid. "Why," said he to Warrenne, "should we protract the war, and spend the King's money? Let us pass on, and do our duty!"
Warrenne weakly gave way, and the English troops began to cross the bridge, the Scots retaining their post on the high ground until Sir Marmaduke Twenge, an English knight, impetuously spurred up the hill, when about half the army had crossed, and charged the Scottish ranks. In the meantime, Wallace had sent a chosen force to march down the side of the hill and cut off the troops who had crossed from the foot of the bridge, and he himself, rushing down on the advancing horsemen, entirely, broke them, and made a fearful slaughter of all on that side of the river, seizing on the bridge, so that there was no escape. One of the knights proposed to swim their horses across the river. "What!" said Sir Marmaduke Twenge, "drown myself, when I can cut my way through the midst of them by the bridge? Never let such foul slander fall on me!" He then set spurs to his horse, and, with his nephew and armor-bearer, forced his way back to his friends, across the bridge, by weight of man and horse, through the far more slightly-armed Scots. Warrenne was obliged to march off, with, the loss of half his army, and of Cressingham, whose corpse was found lying on the plain, and was barbarously, mangled by the Scots. They cut the skin into pieces, and used it for saddle-girths; even Wallace himself being said to have had a sword-belt made of it.