and by the possibility
that the smallest spark of resistance might at any time be blown into a
flame. At last he was captured through the zeal, or treachery, of a
Scot in Edward's service. In August, Wallace was despatched to London
to stand a public trial for treason, sedition, sacrilege, and murder.
He denied that he had ever become Edward's subject, but did not escape
conviction. With his execution, the last stage of Edward's triumph in
Scotland was accomplished. Though the full measure of Wallace's fame
belongs to a later age rather than his own, yet it was a sure instinct
that made the Scottish people celebrate him as the popular hero of
their struggle for independence. His courage, persistency, and daring
stands in marked contrast to the self-seeking opportunism of the great
nobles, who afterwards appropriated the results of his endeavours. Yet
we can hardly blame Edward for making an example of him, when he fell
into his power. Even if Wallace had successfully evaded the oath of
fealty to Edward, it is scarcely reasonable to expect that the king
would consider this technical plea as availing against his doctrine
that all Scots were necessarily his subjects since the submission of
1296. It was Wallace's glory that he fought his fight and paid the
penalty of it.

A full parliament of the three estates sat with the king at Westminster
from February 28 to March 21, 1305. The proceedings of this assembly are
known with a fulness exceeding that of the record of any of the other
parliaments of the reign.[1] Among the matters enumerated in the writs
as specially demanding attention was the "establishment of our realm of
Scotland". Three Scottish magnates, Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow,
Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, and John Mowbray were particularly called
upon to give their advice as to how Scotland was to be represented in a
later parliament, in which the plans for its future government were to
be drawn up. They informed the king that two bishops, two abbots, two
barons, and two representatives of the commons, one from the south of
the Forth and the other from the north thereof, would be sufficient for
this purpose. This further "parliament" assembled on September 15, three
weeks after the execution of Wallace. It consisted simply of twenty
councillors of Edward, and the ten Scottish delegates. From the joint
deliberations of these thirty sprang the "ordinance made by the lord
king for the establishment of the la