ditions of Scotland, but who had access to books now lost, unfortunately makes statements as to the age of Wallace which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the first book of his poem on Wallace Blind Harry represents him as a child when Scotland was lost in 1290, when Edward I took possession of it as arbiter of the disputed succession (i. line 145), and as eighteen years old at the date of his first alleged adventure when he slew the son of Selby, constable of Dundee, about 1291. So the former statement would place his birth about 1278, unless ‘child’ means, as it sometimes did, a youth. The latter would carry the birth of Wallace to 1272. But in the eleventh book Harry makes Wallace forty-five when he was sold to the English in 1305; his birth is thus thrown back to 1260. Nothing certain can be affirmed except that he was still young in 1297 when he first took arms against the English, and began in the neighbourhood of Dundee and Lanark his career as the deadliest foe of Edward I. He was educated first with an uncle Wallace, a priest at Dunnipace in Stirlingshire, from whom he learnt the Latin distich:
Dico tibi verum, libertas optima rerum;
Nunquam servili sub nexu vivito, fili.
and afterwards, when he took refuge with his mother at Kilspindie in the Carse of Gowrie, with another uncle, probably her brother, at the monastic school of Dundee. It was at this school he met John Blair, who became his chaplain, and ‘compiled in Dyte the Latin book of Wallace Life,’ according to Blind Harry, who frequently refers to Blair as his authority. Education with such masters and companions must have included Latin, and we need not be surprised that the few documents preserved which were issued in his name are in that language.
Apart from the copious narrative by Blind Harry of early adventures, consisting chiefly of the slaughter of Englishmen in single combat or against tremendous odds, by the almost superhuman strength with which Wallace is credited, his life can be traced only from 1297 to 1305. It was in the summer of the former year that Wallace first appeared on the historic scene. It was an opportune moment for a Scottish rising. Edward I had taken advantage of the dispute as to the succession to the Scottish throne to possess himself of the country. In 1296 he ravaged the country and made prisoner John de Baliol, at the time the occupant of the Scottish throne. John de Warenne (1231?–1304) [q. v.] was appointed guardian or ruler of Scotland as representative of the English king, with Hugh Cressingham [q. v.] as treasurer, and English sheriffs were set up in the southern shires and in Ayr and Lanark. Next year the English barons and clergy were in open or veiled revolt against Edward I while the English king was absorbed in preparations for the French war, to which he went in the end of August. The Scottish nobles were divided among themselves by jealousies and were restrained from declaring against the English rule by fear of the forfeiture of their English fiefs. In May 1297 Wallace, at the head of a small band of thirty men, burnt Lanark and slew Hezelrig the sheriff. Scottish tradition affirmed the daring deed was in retaliation for the execution by the sheriff of Marion Bradfute, heiress of Lamington, whom Wallace loved, upon a charge of concealing her lover, for whom she had refused the hand of the sheriff's son. This seems more like a dramatic than an historical plot. The oppressions and exactions of an officer who deemed Scotland a conquered country appear sufficient cause for Hezelrig's death. Whatever may have been the proximate cause, the boldness of its execution made Wallace's reputation. He is from this time a public robber and murderer in the eyes of the English king and English chroniclers, and a heaven-born leader in those of the Scottish people and their historians. The killing of Hezelrig was the only specific charge in his indictment at Westminster. Its date is made by Fordun the commencement of Wallace's military career. It is possible that the death of Hezelrig was not Wallace's first exploit, and that he had already engaged in a guerilla warfare against the English officers whom Edward I had intruded into the kingdom. The commons of Scotland, who only waited for a signal and a leader, now flocked to his standard. The conversion of an undisciplined multitude into a regular army, as described by Fordun, bears witness at once to the small beginnings and the military talent of Wallace. He took four men as a unit and appointed the fifth their officer; the tenth man was officer to every nine, the twentieth to every nineteen, and so on to every thousand, and he enforced absolute obedience to those officers by the penalty of death. He was chosen by acclamation commander of the whole forces, and claimed to act in behalf of his king, John de Baliol, Edward I's prisoner. But he showed wisdom by associating with himself, whenever possible, representatives of those barons who, encouraged by his success, supported him at least for a time. His first associate was William de Douglas ‘the Hardy’ [q. v.], who
