whatever will be left to the Bruce which the triumphant challenge of comparison with Wallace may not hint to have been the merest imitation on Bruce's part of what Wallace had done before. Not even Rachrin is sanctuary for preservation of any peculium for Bruce; even the shelter of Rachrin[1] must be shared with Wallace, and Arran[2] and Turnberry[3] too. Wallace's battles and exploits in the capture of castles again and again manifest the same extraordinary forestalling of the historical achievements of Bruce, and sometimes the adaptations display a coolness of daring unsurpassed in the dashing careers of Wallace and Bruce themselves. Thus history knows only of one battle of Lowdonhill, fought at the outset of Bruce's career, in which, skilfully narrowing the approaches by dykes, the Scottish king's men repulsed a charge of English cavalry, of whom a hundred were killed. Harry invents for Wallace also, as his first battle, a battle of Lowdonhill, in which the same stratagem in like manner succeeded, with precisely the same number of slain.[4] Bruce's defeat near Metliven seems to have suggested a counterpoise in Wallace's victory there,[5] for which history does not vouch. Bruce having gained a battle in the Pass of Brander at the foot of Cruachan Ben, Wallace must needs win one there too, on Lochawe:
Betuix a roch and the gret wattir sid.[6]
Bruce as an archer, slaying the foremost pursuer, was only a little less formidable than Wallace in the like case.[7] If Bruce was hunted with bloodhounds so that he narrowly escaped, Wallace, on Harry's ' making ', was the same.[8] Sir
- ↑ Bruce, iii. 680–725; Wallace, xi. 725, 759.
- ↑ Bruce, iv. 464; Wallace, xi. 725, 759.
- ↑ Bruce, v. 186, 213; Wallace, vi. 836.
- ↑ Bruce, viii. 339; Wallace, i. 319, iii. 115–223 and 205.
- ↑ Bruce, ii. 346–450; Wallace, iv. 420–68.
- ↑ Bruce, x. 20; Wallace, vii. 661.
- ↑ Bruce, iv. 543; Wallace, iv. 554.
- ↑ Bruce, vi. 485; Wallace, v. 25. Barbour's verity in the bloodhound story is finely and curiously confirmed by Jehan le Bel's Chronique, chap. 22.
