What we really know about the chief popular hero of his country, from
documents and chronicles, is fragmentary; and it is hard to find anything
trustworthy in Blind Harry's rhyming "Wallace" (1490), plagiarised as it
is from Barbour's earlier poem (1370) on Bruce. {38} But Wallace was
truly brave, disinterested, and indomitable. Alone among the leaders he
never turned his coat, never swore and broke oaths to Edward. He arises
from obscurity, like Jeanne d'Arc; like her, he is greatly victorious;
like her, he awakens a whole people; like her, he is deserted, and is
unlawfully put to death; while his limbs, like her ashes, are scattered
by the English. The ravens had not pyked his bones bare before the Scots
were up again for freedom.




CHAPTER VIII. BRUCE AND THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.


The position towards France of Edward I. made it really more desirable
for him that Scotland should be independent and friendly, than half
subdued and hostile to his rule. While she was hostile, England, in
attacking France, always left an enemy in her rear. But Edward supposed
that by clemency to all the Scottish leaders except Wallace, by giving
them great appointments and trusting them fully, and by calling them to
his Parliament in London, he could combine England and Scotland in
affectionate union. He repaired the ruins of war in Scotland; he began
to study her laws and customs; he hastily ran up for her a new
constitution, and appointed his nephew, John of Brittany, as governor.
But he had overlooked two facts: the Scottish clergy, from the highest to
the lowest, were irreconcilably opposed to union with England; and the