Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/119

 their sentences of exile or otherwise remitted if they took Wallace before the twentieth day after Christmas, and that the Steward, Sir John de Soulis, and Sir Ingram de Umfraville were not to have letters of safe conduct to enable them to return to the king's court till Wallace was captured (Calendar, ii. No. 1563;, pp. cxxix, 276, 281). At last, on 28 Feb. 1305, the step seems to have been taken which led to his capture. Ralph de Haliburton, a Scottish prisoner in England, formerly a follower of Wallace, was released till three weeks after Easter day, 18 April, that he might be taken to Scotland to help the Scots employed to capture William Wallace. He had already been there on the same errand, and Mowbray, a Scottish knight, became surety for his return to London (Calendar, iv. p. 373;, Placita, p. 279). The actual captor, according to the English contemporary chroniclers Langtoft, Sir Thomas Gray in ‘Scala Chronica,’ and the ‘Chronicle of Lanercost,’ and the later but independent statements of Wyntoun and Bower, was Sir John de Menteith [q. v.] Menteith took him, says Langtoft, ‘through treason of Jack Short his man.’ Possibly Jack Short was a nickname for Ralph de Haliburton. Whether another statement, that he was surprised ‘by night his leman by,’ was scandal or fact, we have no means of knowing. Wyntoun, who wrote his ‘Chronicle’ in 1418, is apparently the first writer who states Glasgow as the place of the capture, but is supported by tradition. Hailes doubted if Menteith has been justly charged with being an accomplice in the treachery, for he was then sheriff of Dumbarton under Edward. He was at least handsomely rewarded for his share in the capture [see ]. The English chroniclers and records emphasise the fact that Wallace fell by the hands of his own countrymen. That some of them were always ready to thwart and even to betray him is a marked fact at various critical points of his life. He never had the willing support of the general body of the nobles. But the tempter and the paymaster was Edward, and the evidence shows the share the English king, who, like all the greatest rulers, did not overlook details, had in every measure taken to secure the person of his chief antagonist. The independence of which Wallace was the champion had come into sharp conflict with the imperialist aims of the greatest Plantagenet. The latter prevailed for the time, but the Scottish people inherited and handed down the spirit of Wallace. His example animated Bruce. His traditions grew till every part of Scotland claimed a share of them. His ‘life’ by Blind Harry became the secular bible of his countrymen, and echoes through their later history. It was one of the first books printed in Scotland, was expanded after the union in modern Scots homely couplets by Hamilton of Gilbertfield, and was concentrated in the poem of Burns, in which ‘Wallace’ is a synonym for liberty, ‘Edward’ for slavery.

Of the trial and execution of Wallace there is a contemporary account embodying the original commission for the trial and the sentence (Chronicles of Edward I and Edward II, Rolls Ser. p. 137, Stubbs's note, pp. 139–42). On 22 Aug. 1305 Wallace was brought to London, where he was met by a mob of men and women, and lodged in the houses of William de Leyre in the parish of All Saints, Fenchurch Street. Leyre was a former sheriff, and these houses were probably used as a prison. He was in custody of John de Segrave, to whom he had been delivered by Sir John Menteith. On the following day, Monday the 23rd, he was taken on horseback by Sir John and his brother, Sir Geoffrey Segrave, the mayor, Sir John Blunt, the sheriffs and aldermen, to the great hall of Westminster. He was placed on a scaffold at the south end with a laurel crown on his head, in mockery of what was said to have been his boast that he would wear a crown in that hall. Peter Malory (the justiciar of England), Segrave, Blunt (the mayor), and two others had been appointed justices for his trial. Malory, when the court met, charged Wallace with being a traitor to King Edward and with other crimes. He answered that he had never been a traitor to the king of England, which was true, for, unlike so many Scottish nobles and bishops, he had never taken any oath of allegiance, but confessed the other charges. Sentence was given on the same day by Segrave, in terms of which the substance reflects light upon his life. It ran thus: ‘William Wallace, a Scot and of Scottish descent, having been taken prisoner for sedition, homicides, depredations, fires, and felonies, and after our lord the king had conquered Scotland, forfeited Baliol, and subjugated all Scotsmen to his dominion as their king, and had received the oath of homage and fealty of prelates, earls, barons, and others, and proclaimed his peace, and appointed his officers to keep it through all Scotland. You, the said William Wallace, oblivious of your fealty and allegiance, did, (1) along with an immense number of felons, rise in arms and attack the king's officers and slay