The following Volumes are now ready — FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK TO THE MEMORY OF THE COMRADES AND HELPERS OF SIR WILLIAM WALLACE MEN OR WOMEN DISTINGUISHED OBSCURE OR NAMELESS Quod de re publica non desperassent...

'The ignorance of some otherwise well-informed persons respecting the claims of Wallace as a national patriot,' wrote Dr. Charles Rogers, 'is deplorable.' The documentary authorities are, indeed, fragmentary, and exceptionally perplexing. Some are clearly trustworthy; many are conflicting, dissimulatory, falsified, false, biassed in all degrees, and full of inference and hearsay set forth in the guise of indubitable fact. The researches of English historians—even when they happen to be Scotsmen—

A most fateful date in the history of Scotland was the 19th of March 1285–86. In the dusk of that memorable day, King Alexander III. , riding along the coast of Fife, near Kinghorn, was thrown over a precipice and killed. He was only in the forty-fifth year of his age, though in the thirty-seventh year of his reign. If we take our stand at Kinghorn on the next melancholy morning, and gaze backwards and forwards on the history of the country, we shall witness the most impressive contrast of peace

The shadows of coming trouble had fallen upon Scotland before the death of Alexander III. The family of the King had been swept away by death. His first queen, Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry III. and sister of Edward I. of England, had died in 1275. His younger son, David, had died in 1280. His elder son, Alexander, who married Margaret, daughter of Guy, Count of Flanders, in 1282, had died without issue early in 1283–84. His only daughter, who married Eric II. , King of Norway, in 1281, had

Who should now succeed Margaret on the Scottish throne? Fordun relates that Malcolm, the first 'rex Scotiae,' decreed a change in the principle of succession. This enactment is said to have provided that thenceforth each king should be succeeded by whoever was, at the time being, the next descendant; that is, a son or a daughter, a nephew or a niece, the nearest then living. It is not at all unlikely that the disturbance of the balance of the kingdom by the acquisition of Lothian may have render

Uneasy lay the head that wore the crown of Scotland. The flatteries of King John's friends could not blind him to his isolation. The formal respect rendered to him often betrayed, not merely reluctance, but defiance and contempt. The leading men of the dissident factions soon proceeded to remove his friends from his side and to surround him with strangers, and even to take out of his control the direction of affairs. The St. Albans Annalist records that John dare not open his mouth, lest his peo

William Wallace was the second son of Sir Malcolm Wallace of Elderslie, and of his wife Margaret, daughter of Sir Reginald Crawford of Crosby, hereditary Sheriff of Ayr. Blind Harry, a perfervid Scot himself, and keenly jealous for the perfection of his hero, exhibits lively anxiety to impress the fact that Wallace was a thorough Scotsman—'of whole lineage and true line of Scotland.' Sir Malcolm, he says, at his marriage, And for further information he refers to the history of 'the right line of

It might be possible to refer some of the earlier exploits of Wallace, as recorded by Harry, to 1292, without much more violence than is involved in the like reference of the Selby episode. But there is no similar necessity. They all imply the presence of Sir Henry de Percy in the Ayr district, and Percy was appointed Warden of Galloway and Ayr and Castellan of Ayr, Wigton, Cruggelton, and Buittle on September 8, 1296, though he did not reach his post till well into October. It is excess of stri

Wallace, however, was eager to avenge him on his enemies. He would not rest at Riccarton. Accordingly, he was furnished forth, and was accompanied by several lads of spirit, his relatives and friends. Adam Wallace, Sir Richard's eldest son, now eighteen, Robert Boyd, Kneland, 'near cousin to Wallace,' Edward Little, 'his sister's son,' and Gray and Kerly, with some attendants, bound them to ride with him to Mauchline Moor. Learning there that an English convoy from Carlisle to Ayr was approachin

With his sixty men, Wallace started through the Lennox. He was well provided from the spoil of Percy's baggage, and he liberally distributed the good Earl's gifts among his followers. The first exploit of the campaign was the capture of the peel of Gargunnock, a little west of Stirling. Wallace sent two spies at midnight to find out how the place was defended; and their report was that everything betokened heedlessness—sentry asleep, bridge down, labourers going in without question. Hurrying up

Wallace with his four followers rode to Dundaff, a hilly tract in Stirlingshire. The lord of Dundaff, according to Harry, was Sir John the Graham, 'an aged knight,' who paid tribute for a quiet life. Abercrombie, however, following Sympson, says he belonged not to the Dundaff, but to the Abercorn family; and, on the strength of a charter in the possession of the Duke of Montrose, he states that Dundaff was then held by Sir David de Graham. A Sir David de Graham, brother of the gallant Sir Patric

Leaving Dundaff, Wallace proceeded, in April 1297, to Lanark, attended by nine men. He joined his wife in a house just outside the gate, and here Sir John the Graham came to him, with fifteen followers. Sir William de Hazelrig, 1 the Sheriff, the oppressor of his wife's family, and Sir Robert Thorn, presumably the Captain, soon devised a plan for taking him at disadvantage. As Wallace was returning from mass one May morning with his companions, not in armour, but pranked out in the civilian 'goo

The immediate outcome of the victory of Stirling Bridge was the clearance of the English out of the realm of Scotland. At the same time, the success gave no measure of the relative strength of the two countries, now fully transformed from friendly neighbours into bitter enemies. It in no way diminishes the glory of Wallace to recognise the accidental weakness of the English at Stirling—the illness of Warenne, the headstrong folly of Cressingham, and the absence of Edward in Flanders. Wallace, on

There is not a little consensus of opinion that Wallace proceeded to France after the battle of Falkirk, but this part of his career is vexatiously obscure. Harry does not scruple to send Wallace to France, not once only, but twice. The first visit extends from April 21 to the end of August, in some year when Wallace was Guardian, and shortly before the battle of Blackearnside. Wallace departs without announcing publicly his intention; partly because he was aware that stout objections would be r

The victor of Falkirk was received in London with extravagant demonstrations of rejoicing. Little did the Fishmongers of the city, who were foremost in ostentation, know that Falkirk was a lucky accident, that the King and all his host had just previously been on the point of retirement, and that after the battle they had had to beat a decently expeditious retreat before the terrors of starvation. The north was solidly in the hands of the Scots. The south, apart from strongholds, was but nominal

'In the history of the next five years' after the battle of Falkirk, writes Lingard, Wallace's 'name is scarcely ever mentioned.' The suggestion seems to be that Wallace ceased to be an influential factor in the course of events. But after all Lingard is driven to acknowledge the force of Wallace's personality, at the expense of his own consistency. He comes to admit that 'the only man whose enmity could give' Edward a 'moment's uneasiness, was Wallace.' The statement looks remarkably like a rep

It is matter of deep regret that the facts of the personality and career of Wallace still remain so obscure. There is no alternative but to piece them together painfully from the strange miscellany of available materials, perplexed, distorted, fragmentary, and fabulous. Yet when the misrepresentations of virulent foes and adulatory admirers are firmly brushed away, the patriot hero stands forth, incontestably, as one of the grandest figures in history. On the death of Alexander III. , Scotland s

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained. Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. Page 44 : "ȝ" is the letter "yogh". Some versions of this eBook will display it as the numeral "3" or as a question mark. Page 45 : "till he was out twenty-nine" probably should be "about". Page 67 : "Earn side" may be a