Forth against him. Their plan seemed to promise
well, for Stirling castle was still in Scottish hands. Edward crossed
the river by a ford, and all organised efforts to oppose him at once
ceased. Prudently leaving Stirling to itself for the present, he
hurried to Perth. After spending most of June and July at Perth, he led
his army northwards, nearly following the line of his advance in 1296,
through Perth, Brechin, and Aberdeen, to Banff and Elgin. The most
remote point reached was Kinloss, a few miles west of Elgin, in which
neighbourhood he spent much of September. Then he slowly retraced his
steps and took up his winter quarters at Dunfermline. In all this long
progress, the only energetic resistance which Edward encountered was at
Brechin. Flushed with his triumph, he ordered Stirling to be besieged,
and from April, 1304, directed the operations himself. The garrison
held out with the utmost gallantry, but at last a breach was effected
in the walls, and on July 24 the defenders laid down their arms. Long
before the Scots people despaired of withstanding the invader, the
nobles grew cold in the defence of their country. In February, 1304,
the regent and many of the earls made their submission. It was more
than suspected that this result was brought about by the threat of
Edward to divide their lands among his English followers. But on Comyn
and his friends showing a desire to yield, the king readily promised
them their lives and estates. Believing that his task was over, Edward
returned to England in August after an absence of nearly fifteen
months. He crossed the Humber early in December, kept his Christmas
court at Lincoln, and reached London late in February. As a sign of the
completion of the conquest, he ordered that the law courts, which since
1297 had been established at York, should resume their sessions in
London.

A few heroes still upheld the independence of Scotland. Foremost among
them was Sir William Wallace, who, since his mission to France in 1298,
had disappeared from history. The submission of the barons to Edward
gave him another chance. He took a strenuous part in the struggle of
1303-4, and he was specially exempted from the easy pardons with which
Edward purchased the submission of the greater nobles. It was the
daring and skill of Wallace that prolonged the Scots' struggle until
the spring of 1305. But he was then once more an outlaw and a fugitive,
only formidable by his hold over the people,