Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/120

 Sir William Hezelrig, sheriff of Lanark, when he was holding a court for the pleas of the king; (2) did with your armed adherents attack villages, towns, and castles, and issue brieves as if a superior through all Scotland, and hold parliaments and assemblies, and, not content with so great wickedness and sedition, did counsel all the prelates, earls, and barons of your party to submit to the dominion of the king of France, and to aid in the destruction of the realm of England; (3) did with your accomplices invade the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, burning and killing “every one who used the English tongue,” sparing neither age nor sex, monk nor nun; and (4) when the king had invaded Scotland with his great army, restored peace, and defeated you, carrying your standard against him in mortal war, and offered you mercy if you surrendered, you did despise his offer, and were outlawed in his court as a thief and felon according to the laws of England and Scotland; and considering that it is contrary to the laws of England that any outlaw should be allowed to answer in his defence, your sentence is that for your sedition and making war against the king, you shall be carried from Westminster to the Tower, and from the Tower to Aldgate, and so through the city to the Elms at Smithfield, and for your robberies, homicides, and felonies in England and Scotland you shall be there hanged and drawn, and as an outlaw beheaded, and afterwards for your burning churches and relics your heart, liver, lungs, and entrails from which your wicked thoughts came shall be burned, and finally, because your sedition, depredations, fires, and homicides were not only against the king, but against the people of England and Scotland, your head shall be placed on London Bridge in sight both of land and water travellers, and your quarters hung on gibbets at New Castle, Berwick, Stirling, and Perth, to the terror of all who pass by.’ The ‘Chronicle of Lanercost’ varies the list by substituting Aberdeen for Stirling, but the official sentence is a preferable authority. It was the ordinary sentence for treason, and shows the character attributed to the life of Wallace as seen by Edward and his justices. Wallace was, as he said, an enemy, not a traitor. He had never taken an oath to Edward. He had never claimed royal authority for himself, but acted in the name of Baliol as his king, as was known to Segrave and the other justices by the documents taken from his person. He had never recognised Baliol's deposition by Edward. He had never asked Scotland to acknowledge the lordship of Philip, but he had asked that king to aid Scotland. He had been cruel in war, but so far as we know he had shown more reverence to the church as the church than Edward. In another respect the sentence is remarkable in relation to a disputed point in English and Scottish history, and its bearing on the position of Wallace. Edward does not claim dominion over Scotland as of ancient right, or by the submission of the Scottish competitors and estates at Norham, but in plain words as a conqueror. It followed, though this flaw in their logic escaped Malory and the justices, that Wallace was not a rebel, but one who had fought against the conqueror of his country. The law of war had not perhaps advanced far in the fourteenth century, but the difference between a rebel and an enemy was known. The trial, one of the first in the great hall of Westminster, is also proof that Wallace was treated as no ordinary enemy. In a sense, the view of Lingard, repudiated by Scottish historians, is true: the fame of Wallace has been increased by the circumstances of his trial and execution, for they wrote in indelible characters in the annals of England and its capital what might otherwise have been deemed the exaggeration of the Scottish people.

In the records of Scotland and England and the contemporary chronicles he stands out boldly as the chief champion of the Scottish nation in the struggle for independence, and the chief enemy of Edward in the premature attempt to unite Britain under one sceptre. His name has become one of the great names of history. He was a general who knew how to discipline men and to rouse their enthusiasm; a statesman, if we may trust indications few but pregnant, who, had more time been granted and better support given him by the nobles, might have restored a nation and created a state. He lost his life, as he had taken the lives of many, in the stern game of war. The natural hatred of the English people and their king was the measure of the natural affection of his own people. The latter has been lasting.

There is no authentic portrait. Blind Harry gives a description of his personal appearance, which he strangely says was sent to Scotland from France by a herald. It runs: His lymmys gret, with stalward paiss [pace] and sound, His braunys [muscles] hard, his armes gret and round;