Page:Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence - 1909.djvu/155

1305 A.D.] in burning churches and vessels containing the body of Christ and relics of the saints," his entrails were taken out and burnt; as a traitor, his head was fixed on London Bridge, and his quarters suspended on gibbets at Newcastle-on-Tyne, Berwick, Stirling, and Perth. For it was held by mediæval statesmen that the majesty of the law could not be defended by simple death; multiple and carefully classified indignity was decreed in this world to every mortal organ of the offender, while ecclesiastics might be trusted to chase the spirit into everlasting torments in the next.

Authentic particulars relating to Wallace's brief career are so exceedingly scanty, that the inventory of papers found with him when he was taken assumes an interest it might not otherwise possess, especially as the papers themselves have not been preserved. They consisted of letters of safe-conduct from King Haco of Norway, King Philip of France, and John de Balliol, with the confederations and ordinances made between Wallace and the magnates of Scotland.