ught away; and
even the old stone chair was carried off and placed in Westminster Abbey,
where you may see it now. Baliol had the Tower of London lent him for a
residence, with permission to range about within a circle of twenty
miles. Three years afterwards he was allowed to go to Normandy, where he
had estates, and where he passed the remaining six years of his life: far
more happily, I dare say, than he had lived for a long while in angry
Scotland.

Now, there was, in the West of Scotland, a gentleman of small fortune,
named WILLIAM WALLACE, the second son of a Scottish knight. He was a man
of great size and great strength; he was very brave and daring; when he
spoke to a body of his countrymen, he could rouse them in a wonderful
manner by the power of his burning words; he loved Scotland dearly, and
he hated England with his utmost might. The domineering conduct of the
English who now held the places of trust in Scotland made them as
intolerable to the proud Scottish people as they had been, under similar
circumstances, to the Welsh; and no man in all Scotland regarded them
with so much smothered rage as William Wallace. One day, an Englishman
in office, little knowing what he was, affronted _him_. Wallace
instantly struck him dead, and taking refuge among the rocks and hills,
and there joining with his countryman, SIR WILLIAM DOUGLAS, who was also
in arms against King Edward, became the most resolute and undaunted
champion of a people struggling for their independence that ever lived
upon the earth.

The English Guardian of the Kingdom fled before him, and, thus
encouraged, the Scottish people revolted everywhere, and fell upon the
English without mercy. The Earl of Surrey, by the King's commands,
raised all the power of the Border-counties, and two English armies
poured into Scotland. Only one Chief, in the face of those armies, stood
by Wallace, who, with a force of forty thousand men, awaited the invaders
at a place on the river Forth, within two miles of Stirling. Across the
river there was only one poor wooden bridge, called the bridge of
Kildean--so narrow, that but two men could cross it abreast. With his
eyes upon this bridge, Wallace posted the greater part of his men among
some rising grounds, and waited calmly. When the English army came up on
the opposite bank of the river, messengers were sent forward to offer
terms. Wallace sent them back with a defiance, in the name of the
freedom of Sc