gainst Edward with Philip the Fair
of France. In 1296 Edward invaded Scotland, took Berwick and
slaughtered eight thousand of its citizens; defeated the
Scots at Dunbar; occupied Edinburgh, Stirling, and Perth;
compelled Baliol to surrender, and sent him to the Tower of
London. Edward then made Scotland a dependency of his crown.

This submission was not the act of the people, but of their
leaders. "The Scots assembled in troops and companies, and
betaking themselves to the woods, mountains, and morasses,
prepared for a general insurrection against the English
power."

They found their leader in the outlawed knight, William
Wallace. Wallace was born about 1274. Popular tradition,
which "delights to dwell upon the beloved champion of the
people," has invested him with many striking qualities,
ascribing to him a gigantic stature and enormous strength,
as well as extraordinary courage. Little, if anything, is
really known of his personality and private life; while all
that belongs to history concerning him is told by his
celebrated and admiring fellow-countryman, Sir Walter Scott,
in the following narrative.

Wallace is believed to have been proclaimed an outlaw for the
slaughter of an Englishman in a casual fray. He retreated to the
woods, collected around him a band of men as desperate as himself, and
obtained several successes in skirmishes with the English. Joined by
Sir William Douglas, who had been taken at the siege of Berwick, but
had been discharged upon ransom, the insurgents compelled Edward to
send an army against them, under the Earl of Surrey, the victor of
Dunbar. Several of the nobility, moved by Douglas' example, had joined
Wallace's standard, but overawed at the approach of the English army,
and displeased to act under a man, like Wallace, of comparatively
obscure birth, they capitulated with Sir Henry Percy, the nephew of
Surrey, and in one word changed sides.

Wallace kept the field at the head of a considerable army, partly
consisting of his own experienced followers, partly of the smaller
barons or crown tenants, and partly of vassals even of the apostate
lords, and volunteers of every condition. By the exertion of much
conduct and resolution, Wallace had made himself master of the country
beyond Forth, and taken several castles, when he was summoned to
Stirling to oppose Surrey, the English Gover