Percy and Clifford, surprisingly, did not immediately trade upon their defeat of the Scots. Wallace can only have been encouraged by this. Percy and Clifford do not appear to have been averse to the period of relaxation which the negotiations allowed them. Having defeated the Scots in the simplest of ways, they were, understandably but mistakenly, somewhat smug. The martial determination of the Irvine campaign had lapsed, as Cressingham indicates in a letter of 23 July to Edward.12 He was himself not without military pretensions, and his account of recent developments is informative. He represents himself as bent upon action against the Scots while the victors of Irvine will not move, he tells his king, until the arrival of the dilatory Warenne at Berwick. It is from this letter that we learn that Wallace, ‘with a large company’, was in the Forest of Selkirk.13 Cressingham was already describing Wallace to Edward as ‘like one who holds himself against your peace’. It is a revealing and accurate phrase. For Cressingham, rather more perceptive than his English colleagues, not to mention certain of the Scots, Wallace was not waiting upon events or orders.
Such was not, of course, Wallace’s nature. Once his mind was made up, and he was far from rash in making it up, he acted forcefully and with dispatch. Thus, there is no evidence that in July 1297, or indeed at any time until after he had resigned the Guardianship in the next year, he allowed his conduct to be dictated by his ostensible superiors. If he had ever been subservient, other than in the purely formal sense, to the likes of Wishart and the Stewart, that had passed with the murder of Heselrig. It is therefore possible that it is from the summer of 1297 that we may trace the animosity of the Scots lords to him. Wallace’s inherent aggressiveness, in the personal and military senses, cut across preconceptions of what was fitting. He acted on his own judgement. This cannot have endeared him to Bruce or later to Comyn, any more than it did to Edward. These three, even when enemies, shared a common heritage from which Wallace was excluded. A later comment may help us to understand his relations with the Scots nobility.14 Having being regaled with a list of Wallace’s virtues, we are told:
Gaining strength daily, he in a short time, by force, and by dint of his prowess, brought all the magnates of Scotland under his sway, whether they would or not. Some of the magnates, moreover, as did not thankfully obey his commands, he took and browbeat, and handed over to custody, until they should utterly submit to his good pleasure. And when all had thus been subdued, he manfully betook himself to the storming of castles and fortified towns in which the English ruled; for he aimed at quickly and thoroughly freeing his country and over-throwing the enemy.
It is easy to detect in this passage the prejudice of the writer. We are required to believe that not until he had mastered the forces within Scotland itself which hindered independence was Wallace able to turn his attention to the English. A potential opposition to his strategy had to be eliminated. The existence of this hostile element is a matter for debate, of course. It is also true that what we read relates to the period of Wallace’s ascendancy, when because of the Guardianship he had absolute authority. Yet we can recognise here the Wallace of the summer of 1297. He was already distinguished by his single-mindedness. It led him into that kind of ruthlessness of which we have read.15 He did not scruple to force fellow-Scots, of whatever station, to obey him in the war against England.
An interesting example of Wallace’s attitude is to be found in the case of Michael de Miggel.16 In September 1305, a month after Wallace’s execution, Michael was called to explain his conduct at Perth before, among others, Malise, earl of Strathearn, and Sir Malcolm de Inverpefray. To them he related his treatment at Wallace’s hands. He claimed that he had twice escaped from Wallace and that, recaptured, he had survived only through the intervention of some of Wallace’s men. Wallace relented but warned him that a third attempt at escape would mean death. Aware no doubt of the danger in which his unwilling association with Wallace placed him, Michael pleaded that ‘he remained with William through fear of death and not of his own will’. Fortunately for him, his story was believed. Edward, who with the death of Wallace seemed to have become more reasonable, ordered that Michael’s goods and chattels were to be restored to him.17 There is no reason to suppose that Michael de Miggel was in any way unusual in having been dragooned into service by Wallace.18
If this is indeed so, two questions pose themselves. Firstly, who in Wallace’s eyes was the enemy? The answer must be that he regarded as such not merely the English who occupied his country but also any who did not identify themselves, to his satisfaction, as actively hostile to the English. It was a simplistic and dangerous stance to take. It demonstrated an ignorance of, or perhaps an indifference to, the realities of political life and, finally, it undid him. There can be no doubt, however, that in the circumstances of the summer of 1297, it was the only position for one with his intentions and temperament.
That brings us to the second question: what was Wallace trying to do at this time? If the answer is obvious – to rid Scotland of English rule and to restore Balliol – it is not complete. Wallace was intelligent enough to realise that to expel the English from Scotland would not of itself restore Balliol to the throne. Such a restoration, being essentially a political matter, was not something of which Wallace was capable in the summer of 1297, although he remained dedicated to the idea. He was, however, able to inflict on the English enemy such blows as they had not yet suffered. In this connection a consideration of his actions after Irvine is instructive.
As has been seen from Cressingham’s letter of 23 July, Wallace was based on the Forest of Selkirk. At the same time, Cressingham was telling Edward how desperate the situation, from the English standpoint, had become: ‘By far the greater part of your counties in the Scottish kingdom are still not provided with helpers, because they have been killed, besieged, or imprisoned, or have abandoned their bailiwicks and dare not go back. And in some shire the Scots have appointed and established bailiffs and officials. Thus no shire is properly kept save for Berwick and Roxburghshire, and they only recently.’19
It has been argued that Wallace alone could not be responsible for the conditions which Cressingham was describing.20 In that he had certainly not taken into his hands the reins of government, the argument is correct. The authority he enjoyed was still military rather than political; there was no question of his being endowed with the Guardianship at this period. But who other than he on the Scottish side had the name, backed by success, to inspire the reversal portrayed by Cressingham? The Scottish officials who are referred to by the treasurer were not and could not be Wallace’s creation. We are therefore speaking of their resuming a role with which they had been familiar under Balliol. Nevertheless, they could not have resumed that role unaided. Wallace, by his actions and his example, made that possible.
He had with him in the Forest of Selkirk a large following. He made no effort, to our knowledge, to move with it against the English who, as Cressingham’s letter of 23 July makes clear, were waiting for their commander, Warenne, to arrive.21 That Wallace did not do so is important. Given the use he made of intelligence, he might well have thought that an attack on the English, leaderless and gathering as they were, was worthwhile. If he considered that possibility, he did not act upon it. Instead, as we know, he turned north and east from Selkirk. Blind Harry has him reach Aberdeen,22 where he burned a hundred English ships. Time and distance combine to make this, as is true of so much of what Harry tells us, impossible. Wallace, however, did move rapidly. He swept across Perthshire and Fife, clearing them of the English, and in early August began the siege of Dundee castle.23
Cressingham refers to the size of Wallace’s army. As the speed of Wallace’s progress proves, it can have been an army in name only; he would have been hindered rather than helped in what he did by large numbers. There is another factor to be considered. A strong rumour current in the summer of 1297 must have contributed both to the numbers and the dubious quality of many who came to him in the Forest of Selkirk. It wa
s the intention of the English king, according to the rumour, ‘to seize all the middle folk of Scotland and send them overseas in his war [i.e. with France], to their great damage and destruction’.24 We cannot confirm the truth of this rumour. But the Scots had reason perhaps to be afraid. With the conquest of Scotland, as he imagined, complete, Edward had already taken with him a number of Scots lords as he prepared for his campaign against Philip IV. The exactions of his officials under Cressingham supported the argument that he looked upon Scotland as a fief, to be used as he thought suitable, its people therefore at his disposal.25 However, anxious to serve under Wallace in the light of this threat to their freedom, not all who believed the rumour can have been skilled soldiers. They required training and discipline, qualities which he had succeeded in instilling in them by the time of Falkirk.
Bower offers a fanciful version of how Wallace achieved his aim:
And as he regards the whole multitude of his followers he decreed on pain of death that once the lesser men among the middling people (or in practice those who were less robust) had been assembled before him, one man was always chosen out of five from all the groups of five to be over the other four and called a quaternion; his commands were to be obeyed by them in all matters, and whoever did not obey was to be killed. In a similar manner also on moving up to the men who were more robust and effective there was always to be a tenth man, called a decurion over each nine, and a twentieth over each nineteen, and so on moving up to each thousand, (called a chiliarch), and beyond to the top. At length he himself as pre-eminent over everyone else was regarded as commander or general, whom all were bound to obey to the death. With everyone harmoniously approving the law (or substitute for law), they chose him as their captain, and promised to keep the said statute until the succession of a legitimate king.26
We may question whether Wallace would describe his officers in classical terms. Equally, Wallace is seen here as emulating Moses, who in Exodus, ‘chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of ten’. But, Greek, Roman and Biblical references aside, Bower does emphasise those methods through which he sought to mould those under him into a cohesive fighting force: iron discipline, promotion on merit rather than social class, general agreement, and himself as supreme and sole commander. By the time of Falkirk he had come near to his ideal; at Stirling, the forces which he then used had a different role, one which depended on an ability to improvise, as well as on the other characteristics on which he laid stress.
The force which he led out of the Forest of Selkirk must have been only part of the ‘immense army’ of which Cressingham wrote. Wallace, interestingly, was returning across the Forth to an area with which, both in fact and in fiction, he was familiar. It was here that he had struck in that raid which had almost resulted in the capture of Ormsby. That exploit, it has been noted, required horses, and it is possible that, two months later, he was again at the head of a force largely if not entirely mounted. Mobility was essential if he was to carry out his plan of harassment of the English. He would be unwilling to be hampered, in this undertaking, by any great mass of infantry. The nature of any occupation of a country is that it can never be complete. Key centres are used for the purpose of local government, castles held, the network of roads dominated. Wallace, like Murray, knew this, hence his strategy. Part of his force must have been professional, composed of soldiers owing their first loyalty to the great feudal figures, such as the Steward and Robert Bruce. Their presence with Wallace may be proof of the most valuable contribution that the magnates themselves, found wanting first at Dunbar then at Irvine, could make at this time to the cause which Wallace now personified.
If Wallace had detached part of the army of the Forest of Selkirk with the intention of harassing the English north of the Forth, another consequence followed. It drew the English army at Berwick, with Warenne at last at its head, away from the secure base which that town offered. Warenne was at first no more willing than before to stir himself.27 He was no longer young, less than enthusiastic about the war in Scotland, and would therefore be far from disappointed when, on 18 August, he was recalled. He was to join Edward on the Continent. To take his place as keeper of Scotland, Brian Fitzalan of Bedale was nominated. Warenne’s replacement was a man of considerable experience of Scottish affairs, having been made a Guardian by Edward I as early as June of 1291.28 Fitzalan was, however, very conscious that he was not a wealthy man. Unless that unfortunate situation was remedied, he reasoned, he felt unable to accept the honour which Edward held out to him. The king, with heavy commitments, sensed an opportunity to use the change of command to reduce both Fitzalan’s salary and the forces available to him. He rejected Fitzalan’s argument. The lethargic and indifferent Warenne was to remain in command in Scotland.29
The contrast between Warenne and Cressingham, the one less than eager, the other, if we can rely on his own words, pressing for an early engagement with the Scots, did not augur well for the English army as it advanced from Berwick. It is doubtful if either understood the threat which Wallace, the new man, posed. Warenne had learned his trade as a soldier in the baronial wars of the reign of Henry III, some thirty years previously. His success at Dunbar in 1296, if important, did not prepare him for what faced him now. Cressingham, lacking the advantages which his nominal superior enjoyed from birth, was both impatient for and intent on advancement through solving the problem of Scotland.30 It was a fateful liaison. They did, however, share a contempt for the enemy. Warenne, for so long absent if not in hiding in England, did not have the advantage of direct involvement in the rapidly changing situation of the country for which he held responsibility. Cressingham, who did have that advantage, was as conservative as the other when it came to the means of dealing with the resurgent Scots. Neither appears to have been in the slightest doubt that the Scots, lately humiliated at Irvine, would once again be readily trounced by the traditional use of the English army.
The size of that army eludes us. As always, we turn in vain to the contemporary chronicles if we hope for accuracy. Guisborough, even if able to draw on the experience of a participant, Sir Marmaduke de Tweng, cannot be cleared of exaggeration. Tweng was a veteran soldier who later fell into Wallace’s hands but survived to fight and be captured at Bannockburn; he would hardly be the source, as has been suggested,31 of the figure which Guisborough gives.32 One thousand horse and fifty thousand foot are nicely rounded numbers, but debatable. Wiser perhaps, Lanercost, eschewing the need to be precise, is content with a reference to ‘a great army’.33 This vague but suitably impressive description was to be echoed by Fordun. We may come nearer to the truth if we revert to the letters of Cressingham in the search for some approximation of accuracy. The treasurer, whose industry in reporting to his king is quite remarkable, had no cause to distort the numbers of those at his disposal when he wrote to Edward on 23 July. He stated that he had mustered at Roxburgh three hundred horse and ten thousand foot.34 This was for the time, after all, a not inconsiderable force, one which bears comparison with those on either side at the majority of battles with which we are most familiar.35 To Cressingham and Warenne, both assuming the outcome guaranteed, it would have seemed more than adequate for the purpose.
When we turn to the numbers of the Scottish army which would face them at Stirling we are no better informed. That army was the joint responsibility of Wallace and Andrew Murray, each of whom had brought contingents. The exact numbers with each of the two are not recorded, nor is there any way of measuring the proportion of foot to horse soldiers. If, like Wallace, Murray had relied on cavalry to give him success against the English, he, again like Wallace, would have recourse to infantry in the forthcoming battle. Cressingham and Warenne had reached Stirling by the first week in September. At some date before this Wallace and Murray, whose respective campaigns were so similar, had met and at once had discovered an affinity which caused them to realise the advantages of a s
ingle opposition to the English. We cannot suppose that their meeting was accidental. Each would have known of the other; their successes were based on the same strategy, and that strategy depended upon good intelligence. It is possible that they met at Dundee, which Wallace was besieging. If so, the date may have been on or about 8 September. Lanercost informs us that it was at this date, the Nativity of the Glorious Virgin, that ‘they [i.e. the Scots] began to show themselves in rebellion’. It is a strange remark in the light of what had gone before; it may reflect a later view that the decision to fight the army led by Warenne and Cressingham, was taken then. Since Wallace and Murray were at the head of the Scots at Stirling, the chronicle may be referring to them. In any case Wallace and Murray would have been in no doubt as to the destination of the English. The strategic importance of the castle of Stirling, overlooking the crossing of the Forth, was as clear to them as to the English.
Fordun casts an interesting light on the actions of Wallace as he moved from Dundee to Stirling. Wallace, he tells us, learned of the advance of the English and at once got ready to march to Stirling. Before setting out, however, he ‘entrusted the care and charge of the castle to the burgesses of that town [Dundee] on pain of loss of life and limb’. Here again we have, if the evidence is correct, an example of Wallace’s ruthlessness. He appears to have had no hesitation in employing threats in pursuit of his aims. We know him to have been a harsh man, but why was it necessary, once again, to browbeat those who ought to have been his allies? The incident tells us perhaps more about the attitude of adherents to the Scottish cause than about Wallace himself. The good folk of Dundee were alive to the possibility of retribution if Wallace, the hero of the moment, failed at Stirling. They cannot have been unique in their uncertainty.
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