Douglas's explanation, which impressed his comrades in Spain, must have impressed Harry too:
Lowe God, all tyme had I
Handis, myne hede for till were (Bruce, xx. 378).
Of the picture of Wallace in retreat it is only necessary to cite again the Bruce as the explanation. Barbour likens the king, forced to retire when attacked by John of Lome, to Gaudifer,
Quhen that the mychty duk Betys
Assailzeit in Gadderiss the foray ours,
And quhen the king [Alexander] thaim maid rescours
No simile was sacred enough to be reserved for Bruce if Harry needed a decoration for Wallace.
Evidently, just as the battles and exploits of Wallace are so largely the battles and exploits of Bruce and Douglas, so in the central facts of portraiture and characterization the personal figure of the hero is but second-hand the shadow of Barbour's Douglas and Bruce.
In audacity possibly nothing exceeds that adaptive feat of Harry's by which in the battle of Falkirk Bruce is made to level his spear at Wallace, to ride full tilt at him but miss his blow, and as he thunders past, to receive full on his horse's neck the terrible down-stroke of Wallace's blade:
With a gud sper the Bruce was serwyt but baid:
With gret inwy to Wallace fast he raid;
And he till him assonzeit nocht for thi.
The Bruce him myssyt as Wallace passyt by,
Awkward he straik with his sharp groundyn glaive,
Sper and horscrag in till sondyr he drave;
Bruce was at erd or Wallace turned about.
Were it not that the situation has a grave side one might be content to marvel at the whimsicality, the almost comical
