Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/260

396 every species of wrong and insult. Those who refused to take the oath of allegiance to Edward were deprived of their estates, and in many cases of their lives. Whatever was valuable in the kingdom was seized upon by its oppressors; even the cause of female virtue was not held sacred under their unhallowed domination; and in short, the whole country was laid under a military despotism of the most unqualified and irresponsible kind. It was at this dark hour of Scotland's history, when the cry of an oppressed people ascended to heaven, and the liberty for which they had so long struggled seemed to have departed for ever from them, that arose, to avenge the wrongs, and restore the rights of his country.

Sir William Wallace was descended from an ancient Anglo-Norman family in the west of Scotland. His father was knight of Elderslie and Auchinbothie, in Renfrewshire, and his mother daughter of Sir Raynauld Crawford, sheriff of Ayr. Wynton, in his Chronicle, speaking of him, says,

According to some writers, his father and brother were both slain by the English at Lochmaben; but from the above lines it would seem, that the elder