the submissions of all the nobility, even
those of Cummin, the regent.

* Heming. vol. i. p. 197.

** Heming. vol. i. p. 205. the kingdom. Wallace, though he
attended the English army in their march, found but few
opportunities of signalizing that valor which had formerly
made him so terrible to his enemies.

The most obstinate resistance was made by the Castle of Brechin,
defended by Sir Thomas Maule; and the place opened not its gates, till
the death of the governor, by discouraging the garrison, obliged them to
submit to the fate which had overwhelmed the rest.

{1304.} Edward, having completed his conquest, which employed him during
the space of near two years, now undertook the more difficult work of
settling the country, of establishing a new form of government, and of
making his acquisition durable to the crown of England. He seems to have
carried matters to extremity against the natives: he abrogated all the
Scottish laws and customs:[*] he endeavored to substitute the English
in their place: he entirely razed or destroyed all the monuments of
antiquity: such records or histories as had escaped his former search
were now burnt or dispersed: and he hastened, by too precipitate steps,
to abolish entirely the Scottish name, and to sink it finally in the
English.

* Ryley, p. 506.

{1305.} Edward, however, still deemed his favorite conquest exposed to
some danger so long as Wallace was alive; and being prompted both by
revenge and policy, he employed every art to discover his retreat,
and become master of his person. At last that hardy warrior, who was
determined, amidst the universal slavery of his countrymen, still to
maintain his independency, was betrayed into Edward's hands by Sir John
Monteith, his friend, whom he had made acquainted with the place of his
concealment. The king, whose natural bravery and magnanimity should have
induced him to respect like qualities in an enemy, enraged at some acts
of violence committed by Wallace during the fury of war, resolved to
overawe the Scots by an example of severity: he ordered Wallace to be
carried in chains to London; to be tried as a rebel and traitor, though
he had never made submissions or sworn fealty to England; and to be
executed on Tower Hill. This was the unworthy fate of a hero, who,
through a course of many years, had, with signal conduct, intrepidity,
and perseverance, defended, against a public and oppressive enemy, t