Page:Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence - 1909.djvu/112

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 * Sir Henry de Percy. || Sir Robert de Clifford.
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 * Sir Henry de Percy. || Sir Robert de Clifford.
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THE CAMPAIGN OF WALLACE.

A.D. 1296-1298.

RACTICALLY, the whole of Scotland had now owned allegiance to Edward I., and it only remained for him to keep what he had won. He left for the south in the early autumn of 1296, having appointed John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, keeper of the realm, Hugh de Cressingham treasurer, and William de Ormesby justiciar. Disturbance broke out shortly after Edward's departure, for on January 31, 1297, Surrey received strict orders to allow no man to quit Scotland, cleric or layman, and to arrest anyone found carrying letters.

This was probably the beginning of the rising under Wallace. Of the origin and youth of this celebrated man, very little is known, though much has been reported. His biographer, Blind Harry, lived about two centuries later, and his ballad, full as it is of manifest inaccuracy and untruth, is almost 82