10
Gud men (he said) I was your Governour;
My mynd was set to do yow ay honour,
And for to bring this realme to rychtwysness;
For it I passit in mony paynfull place,
To wyn our own, myself I nevir spared;
At the Fawkirk thay ordand me reward.
Off that reward ye hear no more throu me;
To sic gyfts God will full weill haiff ee.
BLIND HARRY
FOR all that Falkirk was a major blow to the Scots, it was in no sense a decisive victory for the English. The infantry had borne the brunt of the English attack but the cavalry, the officer corps, got away unscathed to fight another day, redeem the slur on its character and organise resistance in the remoter districts, especially north of the Tay and in the hills of Galloway. The people who had been cowed into submission after Dunbar were not the people whom Edward defeated at Falkirk. They were tempered by the fire of battle and found a new resilience, making them more determined than ever that they would not be subjugated. But defeat at Falkirk meant the end of Wallace’s rule and shortly afterwards he gave up the guardianship; whether voluntarily or not is immaterial. His position had become increasingly untenable in face of the jealousies of his high-born rivals, and it is interesting to speculate that, sooner or later, he might have been removed from office, even if the Battle of Falkirk had been successful.
Immediately after the battle he marched north to Stirling where he ordered the destruction of the town and its castle, with the intention of denying the enemy its most precious objective. In any case Edward was in no immediate position to follow up his victory; his troops were exhausted and starving. When a supply ship managed to dock at Leith two days after the battle there was only sufficient food to succour the Edinburgh garrison itself, with nothing left over for the famished soldiers at Falkirk. The English army tightened its belt and marched forward, and on 26 July Edward entered the ruined town of Stirling. The only building left standing and tolerably habitable was the Dominican convent which, for two weeks, became Edward’s headquarters. Here he recuperated from his injury and gave orders for the hurried repair to the castle walls. Meanwhile a punitive expedition had been sent into Fife to lay that county waste because of Macduff’s support of Wallace in the battle. The Irish troops found St Andrews deserted by its inhabitants and vented their spleen by razing it to the ground. Wallace’s men retreated as Edward advanced but had ample time to destroy Perth by burning, so that the enemy gained nothing from occupying it.
If Wallace, still nominally Guardian of Scotland, was now on the defensive, the campaign was not entirely lost. It seems likely that the young Earl of Carrick, operating from Ayr, took command of the irregular forces operating in Galloway that summer and was responsible for the siege of Carlisle which continued as late as 2 August. By the middle of that month Edward had had enough of campaigning against an elusive enemy and, after leaving a company of Northumbrians to garrison Stirling Castle, he headed south with his army. Some time was spent in and around Edinburgh before Edward moved westwards through the Forest of Selkirk, crossing Peeblesshire and Lanarkshire and reaching Ayr on 26 August. Hemingburgh records that Edward found both town and castle ‘empty and burnt’, the Earl of Carrick having systematically destroyed them after evacuating the inhabitants into the hilly and densely wooded districts of his earldom. Ayr was doubly disappointing; not only did the destroyed town afford little in the way of shelter as summer came to an end, but the supply ships expected from Ireland and the west of England failed to materialise. ‘For fifteen days there was a mighty famine in the camp,’ says Hemingburgh.
At the beginning of September Edward left Ayr but there was no thought of giving chase to the wily Bruce. By now many of the horses were dying (though this presumably provided the soldiers with a desperately needed source of protein). The chastened army now proceeded by Cumnock and Sanquhar into Nithsdale. On the evening of 2 September Edward reached Treskuer (Troqueer) on the west bank of the Nith overlooking the town of Dumfries, and inspected the Castledykes site south of the town itself. The following day he was at Dalgarno and Tibbers where he must have seen the stone castle erected by Sir Richard Siward. On 4 September he stayed at Lochmaben where his troops occupied the Bruce mote-hill by the church. The Bruce castle of that period stood on an eminence between the Kirk and Castle lochs dominating the main road north and south. As at Dumfries, King Edward spent some time inspecting the existing fortifications in great detail, his object being to establish military strongpoints for the control of Scotland against further outbreaks of rebellion. In Wales Edward had built massive fortresses of stone, designed for the permanent subjugation of that principality. In Scotland, however, he seems to have been concerned with a less permanent form of occupation, and for that reason felt that wooden peles were sufficient. Stockaded peles were subsequently erected at Selkirk and Dumfries, and a similar structure at Lochmaben — but not on the site of the then existing castle of Annandale, the traditional Bruce stronghold.
Instead, the wooden pele was erected at the southern end of the Castle Loch on the site of an Iron-Age fort, Sir Robert de Clifford being left in charge of the construction gang. The work progressed sufficiently well for Robert de Cantilope to be appointed as constable on Christmas Day. The progress of the building is well documented: on 28 December forty-eight labourers from Cumbria were hired at twopence a day to assist in the work. On 2 February 1299 Clifford wrote to the King’s Treasurer at Carlisle asking that, as he had ordered the crossbowmen to remain at Lochmaben, they should receive fifteen days’ pay in advance, along with further crossbowmen coming from Carlisle, with threepence daily each owing to ‘the great dearness in the country’.
This pele was attacked in August 1299 by Scottish forces commanded by the Earl of Carrick, operating from the great Border castle of Caerlaverock. The attack was beaten off and Robert de Conynghame, Constable of Caerlaverock, was killed in the assault. His severed head was subsequently displayed on a pole from the great wooden tower. Steps were taken to reinforce the original wooden structure with stonework. In the ensuing century this was to form the nucleus of a great stone castle, strategic key to the western Borders of Scotland, and even today its ruins are an impressive reminder of its former importance. Today it is known as Bruce’s Castle, though ironically its only connection with the future king was his abortive raid of 1299.
Having made elaborate arrangements for the garrisoning of strongpoints, Edward crossed the River Sark on 8 September and re-entered England, reaching Carlisle later the same day. The third invasion of Scotland in less than three years had achieved very little. The spectacular success of Falkirk was more apparent to some nineteenth-century historians than it really was, and certainly Edward did not regard it as one of his greatest achievements. The campaign of 1298 closed on a disappointing note as Edward ruefully counted the costs at Carlisle. His men had won a victory, to be sure, but losses through illness and disease probably far exceeded those slain in battle. In time-honoured fashion the Scots had harried the rearguard and picked off the stragglers at will. It is recorded that few of Edward’s horses made it back to Carlisle; that alone must have been a grievous loss, given the value of a fully trained battle-charger.
Edward had sojourned in Scotland barely two months and had led his starving and mutinous troops on an uneasy and exceedingly costly march through the Lowlands. He had defeated a formidable enemy but failed to destroy it, he had not managed to penetrate the Highlands at all, and his hold on the Lowlands was proving illusory; he had restored the chief castle of central Scotland but had left its garrison so isolated that within half a year it would be forced to surrender; he had found that all his good work of two years ago had been utterly undone and his strongholds destroyed. Edward consoled himself by dividing among his principal followers the estates of the Scottish barons who had failed to respond to his summons, and restoring the English clergy who had been summarily ejected from their benefices.1 It is ironic that the number of priests restored to their livings far exceeded the number of troops making up the garrisons left behind to keep the Scots in check. In real terms, however, this had little effect other than to alienate the Scottish magnates who, now that their formidable johnny-come-lately had been discredited, were beginning to discover a sense of patriotism at long last.
That Edward, despite his great victory, had achieved absolutely nothing, is shown by the fact that, as early as 9 August 1298, Sir John de Kingston, then deputy constable of Edinburgh Castle, wrote an urgent despatch to the Lord Treasurer saying:
The Earl of Buchan, the Bishop of St Andrews and other great earls and lords, who were on the other side of the Scots water [the Firth of Forth] have come to this side. Today they are in Glasgow. They intend to go towards the Border, as is reported among them and their people who are in the Forest . . . They of the Forest have surrendered themselves to the Scots.2
Even worse, a band of Scots had had the effrontery to march right up to the gates of Edinburgh Castle and had done considerable damage, capturing the constable Sir Thomas d’Arderne in the process. If the Scots could behave thus with impunity, it makes a mockery of Edward’s latest pacification of Scotland. This interesting report concluded with some very disturbing news, casting doubts on the loyalty of Sir Simon Fraser who had, until that time, been one of Edward’s most ardent supporters. Fraser had accompanied Edward to Flanders and had fought with great distinction there, with the result that the King had restored his estates in both Scotland and England. After Falkirk Fraser’s continuing devotion to the English cause led to his appointment as Warden of Selkirk Forest, superintending the activities of the outposts which Edward had established throughout this vast wilderness. Now, however, Kingston was warning Edward that Fraser ‘I fear is not of such good faith as he ought to be’ and begging His Majesty and his council to beware. Furthermore:
Whereas Sir Simon Fraser comes to you in such haste, let me inform you, Sire, that he has no need to be in such a great hurry, for there was not by any means such a great power of people who came into his jurisdiction but that they might have been stopped by the garrisons if Sir Simon had given them warning. And of this I warned him eight days before they came; and before they entered into the Forest, it was reported that there was a treaty between them and Sir Simon, and that they had a conference together, and ate and drank, and were on the best of terms. Wherefore, Sire, it were well that you should be very cautious as to the advice which he should give you.
If someone as loyal as Fraser was now changing sides, it showed how counter-productive the recent campaign had been. The Scots might have been thrashed in a pitched battle, but they had seen how Edward’s proud host had slunk back across the border, their tails between their legs, and this alone must have put new spirit into the people of the Lowlands, a spirit that communicated itself all the way to the highest leaders.
Meanwhile Edward was soon making plans for yet another expedition against the tiresome Scots. On 26 September, less than three weeks after he returned to Carlisle, he addressed a fresh summons to the Earl Marshal and a great number of other magnates (including the earls of Angus and March). This document has a curiously modern ring, Edward justifying his aggression against a smaller and weaker neighbour in the kind of language which Hitler reserved for the Czechs in 1938 and the Poles in 1939. The eve of Pentecost (24 May 1299) was fixed for the muster of what promised to be an even larger force than before, ‘to go forward in the Scottish business upon the enemies of the crown and realm of England, and to put down their disobedience and their malice which purpose nothing else but to subdue the said crown, and the estate of the said realm of England, to their power.’3
On 12 December Edward issued orders to various sheriffs and other officers in England to forward provisions to Berwick, and their Irish counterparts were instructed to send supplies to the great base at Skinburness near Carlisle, in each case by 6 June 1299. Edward was in a vehement mood, determined to attack the rebels the following summer with as much power as he could muster, and then to annihilate them utterly. Again, the extreme language of his writs is difficult to reconcile with the character of justice and compassion painted by the English chroniclers. Otherwise, this was a period of comparative tranquillity and Edward indulged his penchant for shows of piety by making pilgrimages to the tombs of St John of Beverley and other local saints, ‘thanking God for his victory, as was his custom after such affairs’.4
John de Kingston replaced Walter de Huntercombe as Constable of Edinburgh Castle on 25 November, but his warnings about Sir Simon Fraser were either unheeded or unfounded, for that knight continued in the post of Warden of Selkirk Forest and was commanded to give his assistance in forays from Berwick and Edinburgh against the unruly Scots during November and December. On 19 November Patrick, Earl of March, was appointed commander of the forces and castles on the east coast of Scotland south of the Forth. All this is evidence that Edward had some hold on the south-east of Scotland, together with his proud stockade at Lochmaben in the south-west; but in truth the English were only hanging on by their fingernails.
Meanwhile, there had been an inevitable change in the government of Scotland. Even if the Scottish magnates had not demanded his resignation, Wallace’s guardianship was no longer tenable. Fordun claims that he ‘chose rather to serve with the crowd, than to be set over them, to their ruin, and the grievous wasting of the people. So, not long after the Battle of Falkirk, at the water of Forth, he, of his own accord, resigned the office and charge which he held, of Guardian.’ Wyntoun repeats this in substance, adding a comment about Wallace’s devotion and consideration for ‘the leal commons of Scotland’. To Wallace this was the only honourable course. Lesser men might have been content to withdraw completely from public affairs, or succumb to the blandishments offered by the King of England, but Wallace never gave up the struggle. Henceforward he would wage war by whatever means, limited though they might be, and even attempt diplomacy if that course helped to free his country.
According to the Rishanger Chronicle Wallace went into hiding after Falkirk, together with his brother Sir Malcolm, the Earl of Atholl and a number of other knights. This has been interpreted as Wallace, finding open warfare no longer feasible, reverting to his earlier guerrilla tactics.
By 2 December 1298, if not earlier, Robert Bruce, younger Earl of Carrick, and John Comyn the Red were joint Guardians of Scotland.5 This was a remarkable turn of events, for the government was now in the hands of the two principal rivals for the throne. Hitherto they had acted mainly, if not entirely, from selfish motives. It is significant that Carrick was the only Scottish earl elected to this prestigious position, reflecting his standing in regard to the other earls. Indeed, when one considers the rest of the magnates, this choice was inevitable.
The younger John Comyn of Badenoch, nephew of King John, represented the Balliol faction. Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, now twenty-four years of age, represented the Bruce faction. While there was an immediate threat from England the two Guardians co-operated well enough, and the day-to-day administration of Scotland continued reasonably smoothly. Sheriffs held their courts in many parts of the country, taxes were collected and parliament of a sort continued to meet, perhaps irregularly and in some rather unconventional locations, so that acts were passed for the good governance of the country.
The dual guardianship functioned for about a year, and it has been suggested that something of Wallace’s selfless statesmanship must have rubbed off on the two young noblemen; but as the threat of invasion receded the old rivalries came to the surface once more. In the course of 1299, however, there was some evidence of solidarity. Even the earls of Buchan and Menteith cast their lot with the Guardians, while the Earl of Angus, the English-born and bred Ingelram de Umfraville, changed sides once more and espoused the Scottish cause. On 20 February 1299 Edward had him publicly denounced as an enemy and a rebel and granted his estates in Northumberland to that rising star, Henry de Percy. The earl’s right-hand man, Sir David de Brechin, who had fought on the English side at Dunbar but who married the widow of Sir John Stewart of Bonkill after Falkirk, was another defector to the Scottish side. Sir John de Soulis, a brave and energetic knight whom Fordun curiously describes as ‘simple-minded and not firm enough’, joined the inner council advising the Guardians.
Interestingly, as William Wallace’s star waned, that of his elder brother Malcolm was in the ascendant. Remarkably little is known about this knight, who seems to have kept his head down in the previous decade. He was probably much older than William and after his father’s untimely death in 1291 was no doubt preoccupied with running the family estate. Now, however, he came to prominence. One account suggests that it was he who delivered William’s resignation to the council of magnates; and certainly in the ensuing period he provided the liaison between his brother and the ruling junta.
Sir Robert de Keith, Sir David de Graham and Sir William de Balliol, as well as that enigmatic figure, James the Steward, now assumed leading roles in the conduct of Scotland’s affairs. One must assume that many other earls, barons and knights lent their tacit support to the Guardians. Defeated in battle he may have been, Wallace was nevertheless the catalyst which led to the revival of national interest among the traditional ruling classes. He had shown his betters that courage and determination could defeat the mightiest army in Europe. His record in pitched battles might be debatable, but it was he who showed the Scots that their own indomitable will could make the English subjugation of their country unworkable. If only the Scots had the guts to make a stand against Edward, and stand together for their common good, then they could not be conquered.
The year 1299 marked the nadir of Wallace’s fortunes and, indeed, the rest of his life looks like an anticlimax. One recent historian, in fact, has dismissed the last seven years of his life in a few lines, as a period of obscurity, ‘harrying the English whenever he could with bands of fearless men, or acting as messenger to the King of France or His Holiness the Pope for his friend William Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews.’6 This conceals a great deal of activity, though the story can only be constructed from tantalising scraps in the chronicles and contemporary documents. Wallace had pulled strings to secure the election of William de Lamberton to the bishopric of St Andrews, and Lamberton never forgot this. He continued to regard Wallace as a close friend, and was later to entrust him with several diplomatic missions of the utmost importance. Lamberton had a much broader view of Anglo-Scottish relations than the rest of his peers, for he had spent much of the time since his nomination to the see out of the country. After his consecration at Rome in 1298 he went to France and pleaded the Scottish case at the court of Philip IV to such good account that King Philip gave him a letter, dated 6 April that year, which he personally took to the Guardians. This missive praised ‘their constancy to their king and their shining valour in defence of their native land against injustice’. Philip described himself as ‘not unmindful of the old league between their king, themselves, and him, and carefully pondering ways and means of helping them’.7
Having delivered this encouraging, though not particularly helpful, letter Bishop Lamberton returned to France in the company of Sir John de Soulis and the abbots of Jedburgh and Melrose. They remained there until July when King Edward succeeded in making his peace with Philip and alienating him from the Scottish cause. From Paris, however, Lamberton wrote to the Guardians, urging them ‘to carry on the war vigorously, until the Bishop and the other lords in France could return to Scotland’. At the same time he wrote a letter to William Wallace, praying that ‘for the love you have of me, you will do all possible hurt and damage to the King of England’.8 Another letter went to the canons of St Andrews instructing them to employ a portion of his own provisions for the sustenance of Wallace. Oddly enough, the substance of these three letters was repeated in a letter which King Edward wrote to Pope Clement in 1306, indicating that the bearer was captured on his way from France and the letters impounded. Edward was certainly aware of this diplomatic correspondence and the imminent return of the Scottish envoys from France; between 10 June and 20 August 1299 he sent urgent orders to various shipmasters in the Channel ports of Rye and Winchelsea to intercept, and capture if possible, ‘the Bishop of St Andrews, the abbots of Melrose and Jedburgh, Sir John de Soulis, and other Scottish enemies in Flanders’ whom his network of spies had informed him ‘will embark at Dam or thereabouts’. It seems unlikely that the letters ever reached their proper destination, but at least they are strong evidence of Lamberton’s tireless efforts abroad and his continuing support for the erstwhile Guardian.
In spite of the vigilance of English ships, Lamberton and his companions got back to Scotland without mishap. While it may be argued that Philip’s letter, warm and generous though it might be, did not amount to actual support in men and matériel, the French ruler’s attitude was enough to keep Edward’s attention focused firmly on the Continent. The mobilisation of English forces, originally planned for 6 June, was therefore put back until August, and then cancelled for that year, so the diplomatic mission won for the Scots a valuable breathing space.
This does not mean that hostilities came to an end. In mid-July a force of twelve knights and three hundred men-at-arms was mustered at Carlisle for a raid into Annandale, and a week or two later there were reports that, in retaliation, the Earl of Angus and Sir William de Balliol were harassing Edward’s outposts in the vast Selkirk Forest still under the nominal command of Sir Simon Fraser. To this period also belong the guerrilla raids referred to by John the Marshal, bailiff of the Earl of Lincoln in the barony of Renfrew, when he sent an urgent appeal to the King for assistance. Wallace, with three hundred men-at-arms and a multitude of foot soldiers, had been lurking in Galloway but had now advanced on the bailery of Cunninghame, seized the King’s bailiffs and other officers, ‘made a fine for their heads and had totally rebelled against their late fealty’. Unless he got immediate help, John felt he could not defend his barony. To the same period probably belong the undated petitions to the King from the abbots of Sweetheart (near Dumfries) and Dundrennan, couched in similar alarming terms and confirming the activities of Wallace throughout Galloway.
Cracks were now beginning to appear in the Scottish solidarity. Sir Robert de Hastings had a mole in the Scottish council and his eye-witness account of an extraordinary incident formed the basis of the report which Hastings wrote to King Edward from Roxburgh on 20 August. Until the previous month, Hastings had been Edward’s warden of the west march, but when it seemed likely that the Scots might lay siege to Roxburgh Castle, he was sent there to conduct its defence. According to Hastings, Angus and Balliol had been joined by the ‘great lords of Scotland with all their power’, but when they learned that Roxburgh was too strongly garrisoned to be attacked, they had ‘kept quiet till Wednesday next after the Assumption of Our Lady [19 August] on which day I had my spy among them’.9
On that fateful day the Scots held a council of war at Peebles, attended by all the leaders except Wallace. In addition to both Guardians, there were James the Steward, the Earl of Buchan, Bishop Lamberton, the Earl of Menteith and several knights, including Sir Malcolm Wallace. The immediate business was the conduct of the war in the Borders area, but one of the knights, Sir David de Graham, turned the discussion into a very heated argument when ‘he demanded of the council the lands and goods which were the property of Sir William Wallace, since he was going out of the kingdom without the will or leave of the Guardians’. It appears that this was news to the council as a whole, although the probability is that Wallace’s action had been undertaken with the encouragement, if not under the direct order, of Bishop Lamberton. Not surprisingly, Sir Malcolm Wallace deeply resented Graham’s outburst and pointed out that his brother’s lands and goods could not be expropriated until it was proven ‘whether he went out of the kingdom for profit of the kingdom or against it’. This cutting remark was doubtless intended to shame Sir David into silence and remind him of the younger Wallace’s impeccable record of selfless devotion.
Malcolm’s interjection, however, far from putting the matter in perspective, provoked an unseemly brawl. Hastings described the ensuing fracas in vivid terms:
Upon that, each of these knights gave the lie to the other and drew their knives; and the Earl of Buchan and Sir John Comyn thought, because Sir David de Graham is with Messire John Comyn, and Messire Malcolm Wallace with the Earl of Carrick, that some quarrel was begun with the intention to deceive them, and Messire John Comyn leaped on the Earl of Carrick and took him by the throat, and the Earl of Buchan upon the Bishop of St Andrews, and they held them fast, because treachery or treason was planned, until the Steward and others went between them and stopped this scuffle.
The violent quarrel was abruptly quelled by the arrival of a messenger with a despatch stating that Sir Alexander Comyn and Lachlan MacRuari, captain of the West Highland gallow-glasses, were burning and devastating Argyll and northern Dunbartonshire. The squabbling subsided and some semblance of order was restored to the meeting. Bruce and Comyn were confirmed as Guardians, but Lamberton was appointed as an additional Guardian and significantly entrusted ‘as principal chieftain’ with control of all the castles in Scottish hands. Once more the Guardians of Scotland represented the three classes of the Establishment — the earls, barons and the prelates. Dissension among the leaders was probably due to military inactivity, always bad for morale in wartime. Consequently Lamberton, exhibiting great diplomacy and tact in handling the touchy magnates, devised a plan of campaign for the autumn which would effectively keep the mutually antagonistic factions apart. The Earl of Carrick was despatched to Galloway to attack the English garrisons at Annan and Lochmaben; he left the gathering accompanied by Sir David de Brechin and probably also Sir Malcolm Wallace. The Earl of Buchan and his kinsman John Comyn went north, while the Steward and his cousin Menteith headed for Clydesdale, and Keith, Angus and Lamberton remained in the Borders. Sir Ingelram de Umfraville, Earl of Angus, was appointed Sheriff of Roxburgh and Keith appointed Warden of Selkirk Forest. Noting that Keith had been given a hundred knights and fifteen hundred foot soldiers, Hastings concluded his report grimly that ‘they have it in command from the said Guardians to do the worst they can upon our marches. The thing, Sire, seems more true, because each great lord has left a part of his troops in the company of the said Sir Ingram.’
While the collective leadership of Scotland was wrangling and almost coming to blows, William Wallace was quietly getting on with the business of fighting King Edward with every means at his disposal. Shortly before the council at Peebles, Wallace had been in central Scotland, ambushing English supply trains and effectively starving the garrison at Stirling of provisions. When the castle fell to Sir John de Soulis a few months later, the ninety-strong garrison was on the verge of starvation, the men having already eaten their horses. At a court of enquiry, convened later to examine the losses which John Sampson, the Constable of Stirling, had sustained in King Edward’s service, he mentioned an attack by Wallace on St Bartholomew’s Day (24 August) when he had seized all of their supplies.10
From the complaint of Sir David de Graham, it would appear that Wallace must have left Scotland a few days later. One English chronicler states that he set sail with five knights to solicit the aid of King Philip, although this account places the incident shortly after the Battle of Falkirk.11 On the other hand, the report from Hastings makes it clear that late August 1299 was the date of Wallace’s departure.
From the time of John Major in the early sixteenth century it was fashionable to ridicule the notion that Wallace had made at least one visit to the Continent, and Blind Harry’s lengthy account of his hero’s wanderings and adventures was dismissed as pure fable. The principal argument against such exploits was the lack of any reference to them in the French chronicles. The more scientific approach to the study of history, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, however, soon turned up concrete evidence of Wallace’s diplomatic missions. Apart from the circumstantial evidence furnished by the Hastings report and Lamberton’s recent return from France, there was an account in the earliest manuscript version of Fordun that ‘Wallace sailed for France, where he exhibited such bravery, as well against the pirates on the sea as against the English on the land, that he acquired great renown, that he was greatly honoured by the king of France, and promised extensive lordships, but that he was drawn again to his native land by natural affection.’12 Admittedly, by saying that Wallace went to France after the Battle of Roslin, Fordun places this incident in 1303 and not 1299, but Harry claims that Wallace made two trips to Europe, so Fordun may have assumed that only one mission took place at the later date.
The facts, however, are clearly set out in the Cottonian manuscript:
At this time Wallace, with five knights, betook himself to France, asking and requiring assistance from the king of that country. And when he had reached the city of Amiens, straightway it was announced to the king of France that an enemy of the king of England had arrived there; immediately the king ordered him to be detained in prison, which, gratefully and joyfully the people of that city, namely Amiens, did comply with, because they so greatly esteemed the English king. Then the king of France sent a letter to the king of England, saying that if he would accept of William Wallace the Governor of Scotland, he should be sent him; to which the king of England replied with many thanks, and with most urgent requests that Wallace and his attendants should be surrendered to him at Amiens, and everything belonging to him sequestrated, which was accordingly done.13
This account has to be treated with a certain amount of caution. While it is obvious that Wallace and his comrades must have gone to France, it is hard to believe that Philip the Fair would have seriously considered such a breach of diplomatic etiquette as handing over to his implacable enemy the man who had just been fighting in alliance with France. The people of Amiens, capital of Picardy, could hardly have had much esteem for the Plantagenet monarch who had fought over their territory to their grievous loss. They are more likely to have welcomed Wallace with open arms. Equally suspect is the tradition that Edward replied to Philip declining the offer but requesting that the French monarch keep the Scot in custody. In view of the strenuous efforts made by Edward in the ensuing years to get his hands on Wallace, it is hard to believe that he would have rejected such a golden opportunity as this, had it presented itself.
Any doubts regarding Wallace’s arrival in France, let alone his courteous treatment by King Philip, should be dispelled by the letter which the French sovereign gave to his distinguished visitor before Wallace left his court to travel on to Rome:
Philip, by the grace of God, King of the French, to my loved and faithful, my agents, appointed to the Roman court, greetings and love: We command you to request the supreme Pontiff to hold our loved William the Waleis, of Scotland, knight, recommended to his favour, in those things which with him he has to despatch. Given at Pierrefonds, on Monday after the feast of All Saints.14
This remarkable document appears to have been found in Wallace’s possession at the time of his arrest in 1305. At that time he also had several letters of safe-conduct, not only from Philip but also from Haakon of Norway, and also a letter of credentials from King John Balliol which indicates that Wallace had a meeting at some stage with his sovereign. These and other documents were delivered to King Edward at Kingston by Sir John de Segrave and were deposited in the Treasury at Westminster. Most of them subsequently disappeared, though their existence is known from the Kalendar of Treasury Documents, an inventory compiled by Bishop Stapleton about 1323, which has survived. The letter to the Pope was discovered by the Revd John Stevenson in 1841 while employed as Sub-Commissioner of Public Records to sift through the unsorted mass of documents which had been preserved in the Record Office in the Tower of London. The letter is written on parchment in the handwriting, with contractions and symbols, peculiar to the period. It was first published by Stevenson and was subsequently photographed and translated for publication in the National Manuscripts.15
Interestingly, this document bears the intriguing endorsement Quarta Ira Re ffanc (fourth letter by the King of France). When or by whom was this annotation made? The answer might have enormous significance. Did Wallace possess other letters from Philip? If so, to whom were they addressed and what did they contain?
Much of the ninth book of Blind Harry’s epic is devoted to Wallace’s first visit to France, which the minstrel placed before the battles of Blackearnside and Falkirk. The middle of the tenth book deals with Wallace’s resignation and subsequent departure for France. It may be that there was only one such visit, as many of the details Harry gives for both trips are similar. According to Harry, the first trip took place in the month of May, and he was accompanied by fifty men (which, if this described his retinue as a whole, would not be out of line with the Cottonian manuscript’s reference to five knights); but there is no reason to question the ensuing statement, that he had gone without the knowledge or consent of ‘the lords of Parliament’, knowing full well that they would not allow him to leave the country. The departure was also kept a closely guarded secret to prevent interception by English patrol vessels. Harry names his travelling companions as ‘the two Wallaces who were his near kinsmen, and William Craufurd and Kneland who also were held dear by him’.
The ship sailed from Kirkcudbright, an odd choice of embarcation since it would have entailed a long and hazardous voyage either round the northern coasts of Scotland, or through the Irish Sea and Bristol Channel, but probably the latter. They were two days out when they ran into a flotilla of pirate ships commanded by Thomas de Longueville, the Red Rover, for sixteen years undisputed master of the seas. Inevitably the leading ship catches up with the Scottish vessel and first to jump aboard is the pirate chief; but Wallace seizes him by the throat and pins him to the deck. Longueville pleads for his life and Wallace addresses him in Latin, ‘I have never taken as a prisoner any man who was my foe; for God’s sake, I grant thee thy life.’ Having disarmed the pirate, Wallace makes him swear on the sword never to do him injury again. Longueville keeps his word, but as Wallace’s prisoner he is compelled to order his fleet to sail to La Rochelle and surrender to the French authorities.
In true feudal fashion, Longueville offers to become Wallace’s man and take service with him, but Wallace refuses, saying that his friendship would be good enough. Thus, in triumph over the scourge of the seas, Wallace lands at La Rochelle to a hero’s welcome and the pirates are taken into custody. Longueville journeys with Wallace to Paris to make his peace with King Philip, Wallace interceding with the monarch on the pirate’s behalf. The pirate is not only pardoned, but knighted (or rather restored to his lands and title). Significantly, Harry interjects a note that this was recounted ‘according to my author’, i.e. Master John Blair who presumably accompanied Wallace on his French mission. Longueville later renounced his French lands and title to a kinsman and settled in Scotland where he became Lord of Kinfauns near Perth and progenitor of the Charteris family.
Tiring of inaction at the French court, Wallace volunteered for service in Philip’s campaign in Guienne, a province which Philip had seized from Edward in 1294 and which the English king was now intent on regaining. Wallace is said to have mustered some nine hundred Scottish exiles for the French service. During this campaign Wallace is alleged to have led his Scots brigade to victory at Chinon and taken part in the capture of Bordeaux. A knight named Guthrie was despatched to France to recall Wallace. He sailed from Arbroath to Sluys, and having eventually caught up with the knight errant, brought him back to Paris, whence they journeyed together to Sluys and took ship back to Montrose. According to Harry, Wallace was out of Scotland for four months, from 21 April to the end of August, but these dates are impossible to reconcile with his known movements, either in 1298 or 1299.
The second visit is placed by Harry immediately after Wallace’s resignation of the guardianship. On this occasion Harry has him departing from Dundee with eighteen companions. Again he meets with an adventure at sea; this time he encounters an English pirate named John Lynn off the Humber estuary. As before, he sends the captain and crew into the hold for their own safety, while his eighteen comrades take on 140 pirates (incidentally, this number ‘seven score’ recurs frequently in Harry’s descriptions of Wallace’s skirmishes with the English). This time he slays the pirate. Landing at Sluys, he travels through Flanders to Paris, where Philip offers him the lordship of Guienne, but he declines. Again he proceeds to Guienne; again he captures Schenoun (Chinon) and besieges Bordeaux. It is not improbable that Wallace did fight in Guienne — the circumstantial details concerning Chinon and Bordeaux have an air of verisimilitude — but it would be stretching coincidence too far to suppose that history should repeat itself so soon and so closely. On this occasion, however, he discovers treachery in France as well as back in Scotland. Summoned by Philip, Wallace remains at his court for two years and even here he discovers traitors at work. He will tarry no longer. Philip gives him letters from Scotland urging him to return home, loads him with presents and reluctantly bids him farewell. With Longueville, Wallace sails from Sluys and, passing up the Tay, disembarks at the mouth of the Earn.16
The two visits are so similar in incident that it is highly likely that they were one and the same. The story of Wallace’s capture of the Red Rover was certainly well established by Harry’s time, and a variant of it, from an independent source, was used by Sir Walter Scott in The Fair Maid of Perth ‘given by an ancient and uniform tradition, which carries in it great indications of truth, and is warrant enough for its insertion in graver histories [than this historical romance]’. The anonymous author of Muses’ Threnodie, believed to have been composed early in the fifteenth century, lamented:
I marvell our records nothing at all
Do mention Wallace going into France.
How that can be forgote I greatlie scance;
For well I know all Gasconie and Guien
Do hold that Wallace was a mightie Gian
Even to this day; in Rochel likewise found
A towre from Wallace’ name greatly renown’d.
There are tantalising references to long-lost ballads by the French troubadours, but nothing has so far come to light in support of this claim. Consequently, Blind Harry is our only source for Wallace’s exploits and activities. Conversely, Harry makes no mention of any trips to Norway or Rome, though both are suggested by the documents which were in Wallace’s possession at the time of his arrest. It should be remembered that Norway, at this time, extended as far as the Pentland Firth and it would have required no more than a short ferry trip from Thurso to Stromness or Kirkwall to be technically in Norway. The fact that one of these documents was issued by King Haakon V suggests a visit to Europe later than 1299, for he succeeded his brother Eirik II in that year. Haakon, uncle of the late Maid of Norway, probably retained more than a passing interest in Scottish affairs. It will also be remembered that the widower Eirik had married Isabel Bruce, sister of the younger Earl of Carrick, in 1293, and it is interesting to speculate whether Isabel, still Queen of Norway in 1299, may have communicated with her brother using Wallace as an intermediary.
Wallace’s journey to Rome is more probable, to judge by the actions of Pope Boniface who was singularly well disposed towards the Scots at this time. As early as the summer of 1298, as a result of Lamberton’s pleading, the Pope had written to Edward rebuking him in general terms for his behaviour towards the Scots. This was followed on 5 July 1299 by a papal bull addressed to Edward, and entrusted to Winchelsea, Archbishop of Canterbury, to deliver into the King’s hands personally. Winchelsea later recorded that he went to considerable lengths, and a great many inconveniences, chasing after Edward, with the result that the missive was not served on Edward until he was at Caerlaverock near Dumfries in August 1300. The doughty archbishop was not content merely to hand over the document, but added a few admonishing words of his own: ‘Jerusalem would not fail to protect her citizens, and to cherish, like Mount Sion, those who trusted in the Lord.’ Edward is said to have fallen into a rage, shouting, ‘I will not be silent or at rest either for Mount Sion or Jerusalem; but as long as there is breath in my nostrils, will defend what all the world knows is my right.’17
The bull claimed that Scotland from ancient times had been and still was a fief of the Holy See, and was not now or ever a fief of the English sovereign. Boniface ordered the immediate release of Bishop Wishart and other Scottish ecclesiastics who were languishing in English prisons, and demanded the surrender of the castles, abbeys, convents and monasteries in Scotland. Such was the power of the Church that Edward dared not treat the papal bull with the contempt he felt. In the end he sent a fairly anodyne reply, saying that, in a matter of this gravity, he would have to consult his council and would, by their advice, transmit his determination to his ‘superior and revered father’ by special messengers. The bull was discussed at great length in the parliament held at Lincoln on 12 February 1301, but 104 barons assembled there voted to reject it in the most absolute terms. In the interim, Edward, ever scrupulous in maintaining an outward show of legality and respect for the law, had the monasteries scoured for information on the subject, and took lengthy counsel of the learned doctors of civil law at Oxford and Cambridge. The result of this frenetic activity was an elaborate restatement of Edward’s claims and the assertion of his absolute and indefeasible title to the realm of Scotland. The letter sent in reply to the Pope, dated 7 May 1301, was a supreme example of solemn diplomatic tomfoolery, in reckless defiance and omission of essential facts. The rebuttal sent to the Pope by the Scottish envoy, Baldred Bisset, dealt with Edward’s claim point by point and systematically exposed the falsity of the King’s assertions. Edward’s only firm ground was conquest, and the conquest of Scotland was the one point now in practical dispute.
Whether Wallace was in Rome while this weighty matter was being discussed has never been ascertained, and all searches through the extensive medieval archives in the Vatican have so far yielded nothing to substantiate this tradition. On the other hand, continuing papal interest in Scotland and the Scots at the turn of the century places such a presence at the Papal Curia by the personable young Scottish knight within the bounds of probability.