He urged them to let no feelings of resentment at the treatment
he had experienced, or any wrath at the lukewarmness and treachery
which had hitherto marked the Scottish nobles, overcome their feeling
of patriotism, but to follow these leaders should they raise the
banner of Scotland, as bravely and devotedly as they had followed
him.
Then he bade them farewell, and mounting his horse rode to the
seacoast and passed over to France.
Although he had retired from Scotland, Wallace did not cease from
war against the English; but being warmly received by the French
king fought against them both by sea and land, and won much renown
among the French.
After returning to England, Edward, finding that the Scottish leaders
still professed to recognize Baliol as king, sent him to the pope
at Rome, having first confiscated all his great possessions in
England and bestowed them upon his own nephew, John of Brittany;
and during the rest of his life Baliol lived in obscurity in Rome.
A portion of the Scotch nobles assembled and chose John Comyn of
Badenoch and John de Soulis as guardians of the kingdom. In the
autumn of the following year Edward again assembled a great army
and moved north, but it was late; and in the face of the approaching
winter, and the difficulty of forage, many of the barons refused
to advance. Edward himself marched across the Border; but seeing
that the Scots had assembled in force, and that at such a season
of the year he could not hope to carry his designs fully into
execution, he retired without striking a blow. Thereupon the castle
of Stirling, which was invested by the Scots, seeing no hope of
relief, surrendered, and Sir William Oliphant was appointed governor.
The next spring Edward again advanced with an army even greater
than that with which he had before entered Scotland. With him were
Alexander of Baliol, son of the late king, who was devoted to the
English; Dunbar, Fraser, Ross, and other Scottish nobles. The vast
army first laid siege to the little castle of Carlaverock, which,
although defended by but sixty men, resisted for some time the
assaults of the whole army, but was at last captured. The Scots
fell back as Edward advanced, renewing Wallace's tactics of wasting
the country, and Edward could get no further than Dumfries. Here,
finding the enormous difficulties which beset him, he made a pretence
of yielding with a good grace to the entreaties of the pope and the
King of France that
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