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88 into the hands of de Percy and de Clifford. Such serious precaution would scarcely have been taken in the Earl's case, unless he had been regarded as the most dangerous conspirator, pushing his own claim to the throne.

Wallace the landless bore no share in the submission of Irvine. Leaving his wealthy colleagues to make the best terms for themselves and their possessions which they might obtain from their Norman friends, he withdrew with all who would follow him into Selkirk forest. On July 23d, Sir Hugh de Cressingham wrote from Berwick to King Edward, informing him that Wallace was still holding out. Hailes mentions Sir Andrew de Moray of Bothwell as the only baron who supported him at this time; but this is an error. In the first place, the titular lord of Bothwell (for the barony had been confiscated by Edward) was Sir William de Moray, an old man living in Lincolnshire by order of the king, in extreme poverty, and subsisting on an allowance from the English Exchequer. In the second place, Wallace's companion was not the knight, Sir Andrew de Moray, but his son, an esquire. Both had been taken prisoners at Dunbar in 1296; Sir Andrew was still confined in the Tower, but his son had been released from Chester Castle, for on August 28, 1297, he received a safe-conduct to visit his father in the Tower. Of this he can have made no use, for he