Pentecost, 1298, where, to secure the hearty co-operation of his subjects in his
invasion of Scotland, he passed several gracious and popular acts, and came
under a promise of ratifying more, should he return victorious. He soon found
himself at the head of an army, formidable in number, and splendid in equipment. It consisted at first of seven thousand fully caparisoned horse, and eighty thousand infantry; and these were soon strengthened by the arrival of
a powerful reinforcement from Gascony. A large fleet, laden with provisions,
had orders to sail up the Frith of Forth, as the army advanced.
The English rendezvoused near Roxburgh; and, about midsummer, advanced into the country by easy marches. A party under Aymer de Valloins, earl of Pembroke, landed in the north of Fife. Wallace attacked and routed them in the forest of Black Ironside, 12th June, 1298. Among the Scots, Sir Duncan Balfour, sheriff of Fife, was the only person of importance who fell in this engagement.
This partial success, however, of the ever-active guardian of his country, could not affect the terrible array that was now coming against him. He had no army at all able to compete with Edward; and his situation was rendered more perilous by the mean fears and jealousies of the nobility. Many of these, alarmed for their estates, abandoned him in his need; and others, who yet retained a spirit of resistance towards the English supremacy, envied his elevation, and sowed dissensions and divisions among his council. Wallace, however, with a spirit equal to all emergencies, endeavoured to collect and conso- lidate the strength of the country. Among the barons who repaired to his standard, only the four following are recorded: John Comyn of Badenoch, the younger; Sir John Stewart of Bonkill; Sir John Graham of Abercorn; and Macduff, the granduncle of the young earl of Fife. Robert Bruce remained with a strong body of his vassals in the castle of Ayr.[1] As the army of Wallace was altogether unequal to the enemy, he adopted the only plan by which he could hope to overcome it. He fell back slowly as Edward advanced, leaving some garrisons in the most important castles, driving off all supplies, wasting the country through which the English were to pass, and waiting till a scarcity of provisions compelled them to retreat, and gave him a favourable opportunity of attacking them.
Edward proceeded as far as Kirkliston, a village six miles west of Edinburgh, without meeting any resistance, except from the castle of Dirleton, which, after a resolute resistance, surrendered to Anthony Beck, bishop of Durham. But a devastating army had gone before him, and his soldiers began to suffer severely from the scarcity of provisions. At Kirkliston, therefore, he determined to wait the arrival of his fleet from Berwick; but, owing to contrary winds, only a few shjps reached the coast; and, in the course of a month, his army was reduced to absolute famine. An insurrection, also, arose among the English and Welsh cavalry, in which the latter, exasperated at the death of several of their companions, threatened to join the Scots. "Let them go," said Edward, courageously: "I shall then have an opportunity of chastising all
- ↑ The story told by Fordun of the interview between Wallace and Bruce on the banks of the Carron, after the battle of Falkirk, is not well borne out by the circumstances of the parties, Bruce was not present at the battle, and at that period did not belong to the English interest; which is proved by the fact, that, after that fatal engagement, he fled from his castle at Ayr on the approach of Edward. At the same time, it must be confessed, that he held a suspicious neutrality with regard to Wallace; and, if we can reconcile ourselves to the probability of a meeting between these two heroes, it is not difficult to suppose that it might be, in its general bearing, such as it is represented. About 1817 or 1818, an expatriated Scotsman offered a prize to any one who should write the best poem on this heroic interview. Mrs Hemans, who afterwards distinguished herself by many beautiful effusions in verse, was the successful competitor.
