Page:History of the Scottish patriot, Sir Wm. Wallace, Knight of Ellerslie.pdf/16

16 their faces we will tell so much.” Incensed at this bold and determined reply, the English exclaimed, seeing such a handful of men, “They are all our own; let us instantly charge them” Cressingham, with the greater part of his army, had crossed the bridge, which, as some writers affirm, either by the contrivance of workmen, who, a little before, had loosened the joints of the beams that they could not sustain a great weight, or, by the pressure of so many horse, foot, and carriages, without any stratagem at all, gave way, and interrupted the march of the English army. Before their ranks were formed, the Scots instantly attacked those who had passed, and having slain their leader, drove the rest back into the river with such havoc, that the whole were put to the sword or perished in the river. After this battle, Wallace immediately returned to the besieging of castles, and in a short time so changed the fortune of war, that there remained no Englishmen in Scotland, except as prisoners. This victory was so complete, and so important in its consequences, that the Scots who had deserted to the English submitted to Wallace, and hailed him as the deliverer of his country. Berwick and Roxburgh alone resisted, but being deserted by their garrison, they soon threw open their gates to our victorious hero. In this manner, in the short space of fourteen months after King John had been deposed, his kingdom subdued, and constrained to acknowledge a foreign prince, did Wallace, with a few brave men, restore the nation to her ancient liberty and independence.

The fields lying uncultivated, a famine followed this devastation, and a plague followed the famine, whence a greater number of deaths, it was feared, would arise than from the war. Wallace, to alleviate these calamities as much as possible, ordered all the young men capable of bearing arms to meet him on a certain day, when he led them into England, thinking they would acquire health and strength by