Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/116

 both then and afterwards as conferring a legal title. It was about this time, according to one of the 'Political Songs,' which describe so vividly the English popular view, that Wallace was knighted: De prædone fit eques ut de corvo cignus; Accipit indignus sedem cum non prope dignus (Political Songs, p. 174).

Meanwhile Edward I, released from the war with France by a truce, returned to England on 11 March and pushed on the preparation for the renewal of war with Scotland which his son Prince Edward had already begun. Writs were issued for men and supplies, and a parliament was summoned to meet at York on 25 May. It sat till the 30th, but the Scots barons declined to attend, and the English estates, led by Bigod, demanded a confirmation of the charters. Edward promised to confirm them if he returned victorious from Scotland. It was about this time, according to some Scottish authorities, that Wallace next appeared in the forest of Black Irnside (the forest of the Alders), near Newburgh, on the shore of the Firth of Tay, and defeated Sir Aymer de Valence [see ] on 12 June. English writers ignore this, and it may have taken place during his later guerilla war after his return from France. It would be, as Hailes observes, quite consistent with probability. It was a constant practice for the English in wars with Scotland to send ships with men and provisions to support their land forces, and Valence may have attempted a descent on Fife. Early in July Edward crossed the eastern Scottish border, and was at Roxburgh from 3 to 6 July, where he made a muster of his troops. They numbered three thousand armed horsemen, four thousand whose horses were not armed, and eighty thousand foot, almost all, says Hemingburgh, Irish and Welsh. A contingent from Gascony was sent to guard Berwick. Before the 21st he had reached Temple Liston, near Linlithgow. The king's forces were in want of supplies, and his Welsh troops mutinied. It was said they were likely to join the Scots if they saw it was the winning side. At this crisis a spy, sent by the Earl of March, announced that the Scots were in the forest of Falkirk, only six leagues off, and threatened a night attack. To put spirit into his men, Edward at once boldly declared that he would not wait for an attack. Undiscouraged by his horse accidentally breaking two of his ribs, he rode through Linlithgow at break of day. As the sun rose the English saw Scots lancers on the brow of a small hill near Falkirk prepared to fight. The foot were drawn up in four circles, called in Scots 'schiltrons' (an Anglo-Saxon term for shieldbands), which answered to the squares of later warfare, the lancers sitting or kneeling, with lances held obliquely, facing outwards. Between the schiltrons stood the archers, and behind them the horsemen. It was the natural formation to receive cavalry, the arm in which the Scots were weakest and the English strongest, for most of the Scottish barons had stayed away, and those present were not to be counted on. Jealousy against Wallace, always latent, broke out at this critical moment among his superiors in rank. According to the Scottish traditions and the chronicle of Fordun, Sir John Comyn the younger, Sir John Stewart, and Wallace disputed on the field who was to hold the supreme command. After mass Edward proposed that while the tents were being fixed the men and horses should be fed, for they had tasted nothing since three o'clock of the previous afternoon. But on some of his captains representing that this was not safe, as there was only a small stream between them and the Scots, he ordered an immediate charge in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The leaders of the first line, Bigod, Bohun, and the Earl of Lincoln, went straight at the enemy, but were obliged to turn to the west, as the ground was marshy. The second line, in which Robert Bruce is said to have fought, with the bishop of Durham at its head, avoided the marsh by going round to the east. The bishop, after the first blows, called a halt till the third line, commanded by the king, should come up, but was told by his impetuous followers that a mass and not a battle was a priest's business. They attacked at once the Scottish schiltrons, and the earls with the first line soon came to their aid. Edward's own line also advanced. There was a stout resistance by the Scottish lancers, but a flight of arrows and of stones, of which there were many on the hillside, broke the schiltrons, and the English cavalry, piercing the circles, made the victory complete. Sir John Stewart, who led the archers from Selkirk Forest, fell by accident from his horse, and was killed along with most of the archers. Although it has been denied that there was dissension on the Scottish side, there is sufficient evidence that Comyn would not fight. It is not quite so certain that Bruce fought for the English. The alleged conference across a stream between him and Wallace after the battle, related by Blind Harry, is very doubtful. There is clear proof, however, that Bruce at this point really sided with Edward. Hemingburgh's