rthumbrian Englishmen.
They had never consented to Edward's supremacy, and their blood rose
against the insolent rule of the stranger. The genius of an outlaw knight,
William Wallace, saw in their smouldering discontent a hope of freedom for
his country, and his daring raids on outlying parties of the English
soldiery roused the country at last into revolt.

[Sidenote: Wallace]

Of Wallace himself, of his life or temper, we know little or nothing; the
very traditions of his gigantic stature and enormous strength are dim and
unhistorical. But the instinct of the Scotch people has guided it aright in
choosing him for its national hero. He was the first to assert freedom as a
national birthright, and amidst the despair of nobles and priests to call
the people itself to arms. At the head of an army drawn principally from
the coast districts north of the Tay, which were inhabited by a population
of the same blood as that of the Lowlands, Wallace in September 1297
encamped near Stirling, the pass between the north and the south, and
awaited the English advance. It was here that he was found by the English
army. The offers of John of Warenne were scornfully rejected: "We have
come," said the Scottish leader, "not to make peace, but to free our
country." The position of Wallace behind a loop of Forth was in fact chosen
with consummate skill. The one bridge which crossed the river was only
broad enough to admit two horsemen abreast; and though the English army had
been passing from daybreak but half its force was across at noon when
Wallace closed on it and cut it after a short combat to pieces in sight of
its comrades. The retreat of the Earl of Surrey over the border left
Wallace head of the country he had freed, and for a few months he acted as
"Guardian of the Realm" in Balliol's name, and headed a wild foray into
Northumberland in which the barbarous cruelties of his men left a bitter
hatred behind them which was to wreak its vengeance in the later bloodshed
of the war. His reduction of Stirling Castle at last called Edward to the
field. In the spring of 1298 the king's diplomacy had at last wrung a truce
for two years from Philip the Fair; and he at once returned to England to
face the troubles in Scotland. Marching northward with a larger host than
had ever followed his banner, he was enabled by treachery to surprise
Wallace as he fell back to avoid an engagement, and to force him on the
twenty-second of July to battle