William Wallace

by Andrew Fisher

  7 Prestwich: Edward I, 481, states that there were ‘probably’ as many as two to three times as many unpaid as paid cavalry under Edward’s command.

  8 Above, chap. 6. On the oath sworn for Edward, see Prestwich: Edward I, 482.

  9 C.f. Kightly: Folk Heroes of Britain, 181; R. McNair Scott: Robert the Bruce King of Scots, 53; Barrow: Robert Bruce, 146; Barron: Scottish War of Independence, 84.

  10 Fordun, 102.

  11 Above, chap. 6.

  12 Wright: Political Songs, 176.

  13 Barbour: Bruce, 434; Salacronicon, 142–43.

  14 Major, Book IV, chap. XIV.

  15 Major, Book VIII, chap. XXVIII.

  16 C.f. Barrow, 146–7; Kightly, 181.

  17 Rishanger, 387; Pluscarden, Book VIII, chap. XXVIII.

  18 Fordun, 101.

  19 Pluscarden, Book VIII, chap. XXVIII.

  20 Book IV, chap. XIV.

  21 Rishanger, 187.

  22 Rishanger, 188.

  23 Major, Book IV, chap. XIV.

  24 Note 3, above.

  25 On Hastings, and on ‘the Malfosse’, the reader is referred to McLynn: 1066 The Year of Three Battles, 1998.

  26 Armies and Warfare, 306. In the same paragraph, after stating that ‘full-scale battles were not frequent’, Prestwich points out that Hastings was probably William the Conqueror’s ‘sole experience of commanding a major set-piece battle’ and that ‘Henry II was not present at a single one’. Wallace had experience of two, Stirling Bridge and Falkirk, in a much shorter military career.

  27 Rishanger, 387.

  28 Kightly, 181.

  29 Barrow: Robert Bruce, 146.

  30 Chap. 4, above.

  31 The small force of cavalry had fled; the Comyn faction, according to Fordun, had deserted; what Bruce did is unclear; Wallace himself left the field.

  32 For evidence, see below on the event at Peebles.

  33 On the development of the Guardianship, see N. Reid: ‘The Kingless Kingdom: the Scottish Guardianship of 1286–1306’, SHR LXI, 2, no. 172, 1982.

  34 McNair Scott, 53.

  35 Barrow: Robert Bruce, 147.

  36 Chap. 10, below.

  37 Chap. 5, above.

  38 Rishanger, 185.

  39 Robert Bruce, chap. 6.

  40 Kightly (182) sees his mission as of his own making; McNair Scott (53) makes him Lamberton’s messenger to France; Barrow: Robert Bruce, 165, recognises that his work abroad was more important. Reese: op. cit., 107–08, mentions Lamberton in this context. Young, op. cit., 171, links Wallace with Matthew Crambeth, bishop of Dunkeld, and others in France and Rome. For Crambeth see Barrow: Kingdom of the Scots, chap. 8.

  41 Cal. Docs Scot., ii, 1978, in Public Record Office, London. Young, op. cit., 169, states that the incident at Peebles demonstrates the continuing ‘animosity’ between Wallace and the Comyns which, he argues, had begun with Lamberton’s election to St Andrews.

  42 Major, Book IV, chap. XIV.

  43 See Barrow: Robert Bruce, 164 n. 4.

  44 Ibid.

  45 Barrow, 14–15, traces briefly the German interest in trade with Scotland.

  46 Rishanger, 387.

  47 Chap. 10, below.

  48 Stevenson: Documents Illustrative of Sir William Wallace, his Life and Times, 163.

  49 On the proceedings in Rome, see Barrow: Bruce, 166–69; Barrow: Kingdom, 244–45; McNair Scott, 59 and 241–42.

  8

  The Time of Doubt, 1303–1304

  ‘For God’s sake do not despair’

  The date of Wallace’s return to Scotland from the work he had undertaken on the Continent is not known. Nor do we have details of the means whereby he re-entered his native land. The fact that he was able to do so apparently unhindered argues for either English ineptitude or a reduction in surveillance. Wallace’s role in France and at the papal curia was an important one. In the case of his time in Rome, his function has been described as ‘the Scottish counterpart of the powerful English delegation’.1 This was led by Henry Lacy, earl of Lincoln, and Hugh Despenser, father of the favourite of the future Edward II. Their brief, ostensibly the matter of Anglo-French disharmony, may have been widened to lay the ground for Edward’s rebuttal of Boniface VIII’s bull of June 1299, ‘Scimus fili’. Carried by Archbishop Winchelsey, Boniface’s rebuke to Edward over Scotland did not reach him until the following summer, in Galloway.2 The embassy by Lincoln and Despenser is seen as the first step in Edward’s response.

  The departure of the English embassy to Rome is contemporaneous with Philip IV’s letter of commendation for Wallace. It is likely therefore that Lincoln, who had fought against Wallace at Falkirk, would have the opportunity to discover whether Wallace was as fine an advocate for his cause as he was a soldier. Wallace’s reception in France, whether we rely on the admittedly limited facts available to us or draw on Blind Harry, indicates that he was seen for what he was, a courageous and reputable agent for his country. There is no reason to suppose that he was viewed differently in Rome. If that is so, Edward cannot have been left in any doubt of the situation by his representatives on the Continent, such as Lincoln and Despenser. It would be quite wrong to imply that Wallace had the necessary forensic skills to take the leading role in the presentation of the Scottish cause at the papal curia. That honour belonged to Master Baldred Bisset.3 Bisset and his colleagues, Master William Frere, archdeacon of Lothian, and Master William of Eaglesham disposed of one of Edward’s arguments in words which must have appeared to Wallace, himself a powerful presence in the Scottish diplomatic endeavours. Edward’s claim to have ‘full possession of Scotland’ was thus refuted; it was stated by the Scots that he held ‘only certain places in the dioceses of St Andrews and Glasgow’.

  The Scots must have felt that they had cause for this robust rejoinder to the English king, for also contemporaneous with Wallace’s time on the Continent was a gradual but important improvement in the status of John Balliol. From July 1299 until the summer of 1301 he was kept in papal custody. He was then placed by Philip of France in the family home at Bailleul-en-Vimeu in Picardy. Even Edward, within months of Balliol’s move to Picardy, was drawing the conclusion that Balliol’s restoration as king was possible. With France and the papacy supporting Balliol at this period, Edward was driven to concede that ‘Scotland may be removed out of the king’s hands (which God forbid) and handed over to Sir John Balliol and his son’.4 The Scots were to be disappointed in their hopes, but the possibility of a Balliol restoration had its effect on the thinking, and loyalties, of Robert Bruce, the earl of Carrick.5

  If Wallace was a significant voice on Scotland’s behalf, in Paris and Rome, then it is surely inconceivable that Edward’s envoys abroad omitted to keep their master informed of Wallace’s activities and his movements. He who had led Scottish resistance in battle was now achieving another kind of success. Intelligence gathering was by modern standards unsophisticated and underdeveloped but could at times be effective.6 The report on the gathering of the Scots leaders at Peebles in August 1299 has already been noted.7 The English, for their part, were suspicious of the Scots in this regard; secrecy was enjoined on Warenne and others when they were summoned to a war council in York before the Falkirk campaign.8 Edward, of course, had cause for concern, at least in his own mind; the celebrated case of Thomas de Turberville, executed for working on behalf of the French government, lay only a few years in the past.9 Within Scotland itself Edward’s agents were constantly on the alert. Simon Fraser was one who was viewed with considerable doubt. In 1299, Sir John Kingston, keeper of Edinburgh Castle, made his feelings known; Fraser, he said, in a report on the Scots, ‘is not of such good faith as he ought to be’.10 Both Fraser and Wallace were to learn that their movements were watched, and detailed, even by their fellow countrymen.

  The English king was always keen that his enemies fell into his hands, if at all possible, through their fellow countrymen. He had learned the value of bribery in his Welsh wars. On at least two occasions i
n 1282, Edward paid spies for surveillance on the Welsh prince, Llywelyn ap Gruffyd, and his brother, David. Llywelyn was spared the death of a traitor, being killed, unrecognised, in battle. His brother was far less fortunate. Handed over to Edward by the Welsh, he suffered the agonies of hanging, drawing and quartering at Shrewsbury. A price of £100 was put on the head of Rhys ap Maredudd, who met his fate at York. Another rebel, Madog ap Llywelyn, escaped capture by Welshmen only through the power of his oratory.11 He was not long at large; the Welshman, Enyr Fychan, claimed responsibility for Madog’s capture, although an Englishman, John de Havering, did insist that he was the real captor of the Welsh rebel.

  What had happened in Wales, Edward hoped for in Scotland. But Wallace, returning to Scotland, was neither intercepted nor betrayed at this time. Reports on his travels must have reached Edward, and it is not unlikely that elements in the English fleet were given the task of seeking him out as he travelled from the Continent. Edward’s use of his fleet in the war with Scotland was almost entirely for the purpose of moving supplies north.12 On the east coast, ports such as King’s Lynn, Yarmouth, and Hartlepool fulfilled this function. Ireland catered to the west. The hostility of France ensured that the Cinque Ports in particular had a defensive role in English strategy. But while Wallace was, to our knowledge, still abroad, the defeat of Philip’s army by the Flemings at Courtrai in July 1302, and the rapprochement between him and Edward culminating in the treaty of the following May,13 eased somewhat the need for cross-channel vigilance by the English. In theory, that would have freed ships to watch for Wallace, if Edward so intended. The Cinque Ports alone could provide, when required, some fifty ships. Numbers for royal ships were fewer, but still considerable; Edward had ordered the building of thirty galleys in 1294.14 These figures suggest that Edward would have had at his disposal ships enough to mount patrols on routes open to Wallace.

  But was Edward bent on the capture of Wallace? Defeated at Falkirk, with the Guardianship lost and himself absent from his native country and remote from developments there, Wallace may well again have seemed a broken reed to the English king. Edward, after all, was dismissive of the Scots as a race, an opinion shared by his people.15 The ease with which Berwick was captured, and the fiasco of Dunbar, offered evidence to support Edward’s remarks to Warenne in 1296. Falkirk, in Edward’s eyes, had more than avenged Stirling Bridge and implied to him a return to the natural order of things. He would be aware of Wallace’s involvement on the Continent but, for Edward, the role of diplomat was of less consequence than that of the soldier. While Wallace was in France and in Rome, he was, to Edward, not the threat he had been as Guardian. It is not inconceivable that in these circumstances Edward who, it will be remembered, had spurned Philip IV’s offer to hand the Scot over to him,16 no longer had an interest in Wallace.

  All that changed with Wallace’s decision to return to Scotland. What motivated him to do so is unclear. An appeal to his patriotism by Lamberton or Soules, a longing for his native country, a conviction that he still had a part to play there, the inbred fatalism of the martyr – these are possibilities. When he did return, it was to a subordinate position in a Scotland different from the one he had left. The balance of power had shifted and the ordering of affairs was, in terms of the Guardianship, in new hands. If Wallace was unique in his achievements, he was not, of course, unique to the independence of Scotland. The armies which he led at Stirling and more particularly at Falkirk were filled with men of like persuasion. Unnamed and in any other context viewed as unimportant, they were ready to lay down their lives at his command. They stood to the end at Falkirk, helpless against the missiles and the final cavalry attack. Alongside them, if not always in battle at least possessing a special kind of expertise in government, must be placed those without whom independence was impossible to accomplish. It was with them that authority had resided since Wallace’s decision to resign from the Guardianship. Superior to him in origins and social class and often lacking his resolution, they followed their own path, parallel to his but sometimes crossing it. They were the people who carried out the complicated diplomatic manoeuvres and maintained the government of Scotland as the response to Edward’s repeated assaults.

  By the beginning of 1301 necessity had forced the Scots to accept that a return to the concept of a single Guardian was unavoidable. The combination of Bruce and Comyn, already noted,17 could not survive the clash of personalities and ambitions. The addition of Bishop Lamberton, Wallace’s choice for the see of St Andrews in 1297, to the combination of Bruce and Comyn, could only delay the inevitable. Comyn held on to office while Bruce chose resignation. Whether Bruce, in resigning, was planning that defection to the English which ultimately took place in January or February of 1302 is open to debate. As long as Balliol retained that place, however unjustified by his person or by events, which made his restoration the continued obsession behind Scottish diplomacy, the defection of Bruce was a matter of time. Ingram de Umfraville replaced Bruce as Guardian on 10 May 1300 at the parliament of Rutherglen, but the triumvirate which he formed with Comyn and Lamberton did not last a year.

  If the Scots then concluded that they must select a sole Guardian because dissension prevented an alternative, there was no outstanding candidate. Comyn’s apparent failure to work with others was open to criticism, while his conduct at Falkirk must still have rankled. Bruce was not free of the suspicion of inconstancy and personal ambition. He would in any case be opposed by Comyn, as he himself would have opposed the other man. Umfraville had a long and distinguished career in the war but, in the context of the Guardianship, did not match the standing of Bruce and Comyn. Lamberton, as a bishop, was unlikely to be considered. Wallace, the first sole Guardian, and despite Falkirk, neither forgotten nor disregarded by the people, had disqualified himself and was absent on the Continent. It would be idle to suppose that, had he been in Scotland, he would have been considered by those whose voices carried most weight; he had been relegated, as far as they were concerned, to the lower ranks.

  We are ignorant of the process of selection and of the means by which the choice of John de Soules was arrived at. Although he emerged as Guardian as a compromise, he should not be undervalued. Soules was a moderate in the sense that he was not bound to the Bruce or the Comyn faction. If his name appeared as one of the auditors acting for Robert Bruce the Competitor in the protracted search for a king after the death of Margaret of Norway, he was to maintain a certain distance from the family’s later activities. It is true that he did not escape future censure,18 but the source of the censure, the chronicler Fordun, was not impartial. Soules’ relationship, through the marriage of his nephew into the Comyn family, with John Comyn, Bruce’s opponent, surely counted more with Fordun than it did with those who sought a Guardian for Scotland in early 1301. It has been written of this neglected, virtually unknown, man that his ‘record of constancy in the patriot cause can stand beside that of Wallace’.19 Given Wallace’s unshakeable hold on the public imagination and Soules’ relative anonymity, that statement, however reasoned, is not well supported. Unquestionably, he made no impact comparable to that of Wallace. But of the period 1296 to 1305, it might be said that no one did. Soules made no end as a martyr on an English scaffold as did his more celebrated contemporary. But if Soules died quietly, it was as an exile in France, a determined fighter for Scotland. How he was seen by the English can be deduced from their treatment of him when, with Wallace and Simon Fraser, he refused to submit to Edward in 1304. Soules, unlike Wallace, was not pursued to the death by Edward, but Edward nevertheless appears to have looked on him as one of the more dangerous of his Scottish opponents. At this time, Edward, although generally in a conciliatory mood, decreed that ‘The Stewart, Sir John de Soules and Sir Ingram de Umfraville are not to have safe conducts nor come within the king’s power until Sir William Wallace is given up’.20 Unlike the Stewart and Umfraville, Soules stubbornly refused to come into Edward’s peace, a stance of which Wallace, with whom his con
nection is evident from Edward’s decree, would have approved.

  Wallace and Soules, then, were both the victims of the relentless, almost pathological, hostility of Edward I. It is an intriguing thought that that monarch, to whom the motto Pactum serva or ‘keep faith’ has been ascribed, failed so signally to see its virtue in others. For him, the character of Robert Bruce, that most inconstant of men, was more appealing. In him perhaps he recognised himself. He forgave Bruce where he could not bring himself to let Wallace live or grant Soules his peace other than on conditions which he must have known Soules would reject. As they shared the enmity of the English king, so did Wallace and Soules share the belief that the independence of Scotland was linked inexorably with the restoration of Balliol. They maintained to the end that it was for the Scots themselves to choose to keep or replace that pathetic man. Although Soules from his exile in France would support Bruce when the latter had murdered Comyn and made himself king, he was Balliol’s man while the possibility of a restoration existed. In this his constancy was the equal of Wallace’s own. We may doubt the wisdom of their continued allegiance to Balliol. He was not a man to inspire devotion. He had lost his throne in the most ignominious of ways and, once removed from Scotland, was content to allow others to risk their lives and lands on his behalf. But Wallace and Soules were not romantics. They were under no illusions as to Balliol’s quality. Hard-headed and practical, they saw in Balliol a symbol of choice and therefore of freedom.

  Under the Guardianship of Soules the Scottish efforts to secure the restoration of Balliol were intensified. At Rome, to which Wallace had made his way, the papacy had continued in the person of Boniface VIII that policy of sympathetic understanding of the Scottish cause which dated at least as far back as 1294. This was in large part due to the debating skill of the Scottish delegation which, with Master Baldred Bissett an exceptional advocate, made such an impression at the papal court. It was from Soules that this delegation, of which it is possible Wallace was a member, derived its authority.21 The Scots, confident that their success over Edward’s representatives at Rome was an important step towards the return to Scotland of Balliol, appeared to have deceived themselves into thinking that Edward would concede it. He had, of course, no such intention. Certainly, he would never allow Balliol or any other king of Scotland to rule without imposing his own conditions. But there is no evidence that he had any concession in mind. Soules and the Scots could argue as they would, Edward would be bound by no will other than his own.